“That’s so obvious,” said with a thirteen year old snear.
I’ll let you in on a fear of mine. I really hate repeating myself and making unoriginal and obvious statements. Two reasons for this include:
- When someone says obvious stuff to me, I find it condescending and inefficient
- My parents are good ol’ Virginians. I grew hearing them tell the same old stories over and over – and it drove me nuts
Whatever the reason I don’t think I’m all that unusual. As Liz Gilbert writes in Big Magic (page 13), among the many fears holding artists back, being afraid that someone else did it better or that EVERYONE else did it better, stops us from creating our art.
Fact: Not making art is not acceptable.
Grow up and get over it.
Kevin Everhart one of my awesome former directors taught me as a consultant, sometimes you end up sharing information that seems really obvious to you. Sometimes the client knows some of what you are sharing, and that is good because you’re job is to coach and bring them along, but many times what is obvious to you is not obvious to them and they benefit from your perspective, insight and sometimes data.
Also currently, I’m finding a lot of overlap and synchronicity of ideas in what I’m reading from top gurus – even across a variety of topics. As I put in my two cents, rather than be embarrassed by the lack of originality – I think another way to look at it may be to consider it encouraging that so many folks are realizing the truth and coming to the same conclusions.