Puzzle pieces complete a picture but legos create one. I like to solve puzzles, but build with legos. Metaphorically, anyway. The irony is that I wasn't all that into either as a kid.
I was sitting in the corner booth of a local coffee shop today, lost in thought. On the round, wooden table in front of me lay an open notebook, a pen, and a cup of black coffee. In my hand, I held the book responsible for my wandering mind: Storyworthy by Matthew Dicks. I'd been reading about a journaling exercise he uses in his storytelling workshops where you select a list of topics/items and then jot down the First, Last, Best, and Worst things you associate with them. This, he says, is how you plant story seeds.
To me, this is how you turn puzzle pieces into legos.
I don't really have a mentor. Come to think of it, I never really have. It's been pretty impossible to find folks of any kind who are on a similar path to the one I'm creating for myself. Instead, I've made a habit of collecting the lessons and wisdom of mentors far and wide. Yep, in a lot of ways I guess I've created some para-social relationships to fill the gap. But I use my "tribe of mentors", as Tim Ferriss would call them, for their ideas rather than social gain (see what I did there?)
Looking down at my notebook, I scribbled the rest of my morning pages (a different journaling practice from Julia Cameron) before reaching into my bag for my laptop.
Some days I know exactly how the puzzle pieces fit. Other times, it feels like someone knocked over what I was building. Only then do I realize the puzzle pieces were legos all along. That used to frustrate the hell out of me. Now, I actually look forward to it.
When your puzzle pieces become legos, you can build something new with them. That's where the MAP Year Project came from—smaller pieces that collectively create a bigger structure:
- BUDS series.
- Weekly essays.
- Weekly podcast episodes.
- Weekly bonus essays (paid).
- Monthly creative circle calls (free).
- Monthly tech troubleshooting calls (paid).
onward.
-dmac