Creative genius is about flying to new heights on untested wings. It is about the danger of crashing. It is amorphous, magical, unmeasurable and unpredictable.

If you are interested (and it is not for everyone), you can achieve Orbit by finding the personal courage to be genuine and to take the best course of action to get the job done rather than following the pallid path of corporate appropriateness.

Hairball is policy, procedure, conformity, compliance, rigidity and submission to status quo, while Orbiting is originality, rules-breaking, non-conformity, experimentation, and innovation.

…anything that might catch the attention of the sleepwalking geniuses and lure them to wakefulness, help them find the courage to be who they truly were instead of who they thought the company expected them to be, and entice them into meeting life with an exuberance that befits humanity.

It is a delicate balance, resisting the hypnotic spell of an organization’s culture and, at the same time, remaining committed from the heart to the personally relevant goals of the organization. But if you can achieve that balance and maintain it, you will be out of the Hairball and into Orbit…

This cultural seduction plays into the old illusion that if we just work hard enough, and if we just work long enough…we will finally be found valuable…finally be found loveable…and finally find security.

And while, as Thomas Edison said… “Genius is 10 percent inspiration and 90 percent perspiration”…too many enterprises seem self-destructively locked into a debilitating reality of 100 percent perspiration and zero percent inspiration.

We need more courage if we are to respond successfully to the consequences of exploring beyond authorities’ sometimes-beneficial, sometimes-detrimental boundaries. And, if we are to grow, explore we must.

If an organization is to choose vigor over “an ultimate state of inert uniformity,” it must honor and support both the rational exploitation of success and the non-rational art of groping.

If we are to achieve the quantum leaps the future seems to be demanding of us, we must risk leaving our containers-turned-cages and find the grace to dance without stepping on toes. Others’ or our own.

Generally, though, my suggestion is, if you want to live more fully, start somewhere toward the safe end of the security/freedom continuum and move mindfully, ever so mindfully, toward the free end.

So how do we ungag Original Thought transrationally? By soaring above the rational on the wings of spiritual intuition.

…when one of us finds the courage to risk to grow – to leave the status quo of the Hairball – that can be pretty threatening for the rest of us to witness. The threat is that we, too, might be expected to grow. And sometimes, growing can be a frightening and painful experience.

How do we become so bogus? Well, our artificiality is caused, in part, by the many teachers and trainers who work so hard to instill a professionalism that prizes correctness over authenticity and originality.

I achieved a certain limited clarity and resolved to remove myself, one way or another, from the cesspit of my torment – my irreconcilably toxic work environment.

People who have a deep passion for their ideas don’t need a lot of encouragement. One “yes” in a sea of “no’s” can make the difference.

Masks cause little deaths – little soul deaths. When you wear a mask, nobody (not even you) gets to find out who you really are.

A semantic comparison of pyramid and plum tree terminologies. A pyramid is a tomb while a tree is a living organism.

Orville Wright did not have a pilot's license.

If an organization wishes to benefit from its own creative potential, it must be prepared to value the vagaries of the unmeasurable as well as the certainties of the measurable.

…if we are to make ourselves available to what our vast unconscious has to offer us, we must first empty the hoppers of our conscious minds. We must make room.

If you are in a position of power and want to lead well, remember: Allow those you lead... to lead... when they feel the need. All will benefit.

To be fully free to create, we must first find the courage and willingness to let go.

And remember: If you go to your grave without painting your masterpiece, it will not get painted. No one else can paint it. Only you.