Seeking beginner’s mind and bathing in naivety
It's harder to get the benefits of naivety as an adult and I'm chasing after them
When I started my first business I was 27 years old, recently married, with a 6 month old baby. I felt very empowered at the time, full of confidence and so highly motivated to elevate our life that I wish I could go back and take a pinch of that energy to sprinkle around. I had no clue what it was like to run a business, I’d never known anyone in business, didn’t study it or even think about it. I had no idea what it would be like to hire people, manage teams, run massive accounts or cope with pressure and responsibility. I just knew the job and what clients wanted and how to deliver that, plus I knew how to sell, so off I went, but beyond that I was beautifully naive.
And it was beautiful, truly, beautiful.
When people are interviewed about their achievements they are often asked about the beginning; ‘did you have any idea what you were getting into?’ They usually say no and add a little quip; ‘if I’d have known that I would never have started’. There’s a reason we hear this repeated again and again, because it’s true. There is a freedom in not knowing too much detail, and not being able to foresee the mountains you will need to climb.
As I get older I find myself in greater search of this, in work but also just in life. At 40 years old I’ve been around a decent length of time to have accumulated a lot of details about people, the planet, organisational structures, relationships, politics and so on. And though yes I still often feel clueless about adulthood, that is not factually true. I have a lot of experience as have all adults; whatever path we’ve walked, we’ve seen a lot whilst we’ve been rambling along it. In my career as a childrens’ researcher, I often had to chat to kids about their vision for their future, their ideas, dreams and desires. I found the naivety they approached these questions with infectious. Not a slither of cynicism, realism and any other isms penetrated their thoughts. Those thoughts that in adulthood make you sigh at some point mid dream or idea and mutter ‘that would be nice’, before turning your head back to the life in front of you that can’t be ignored.
As we head into 2024 I find myself considering a quest to get into beginner's mind as much as I can.
Beginner's mind definition:
Having a beginner's mind means you approach the world through a beginner's eyes. The term is translated from the original word, Shoshin, which is a word that comes from Zen Buddhism. It means you look at every situation you're placed in as if it's the first time you are seeing it.
I recall being aware of the shift in running my previous agency from beginner’s mind to experienced. After a while I was no longer naive and found I was able to navigate challenges with more ease, afterall, I’d seen them before. My mentor used to point out; look at how you’re approaching this, this used to feel impossible for you and now you’re eating it for breakfast. He was right. And there was beauty in this stage too. Experience and expertise enable you to get into a gear and put your foot down; you can get shit done, solve problems quickly and efficiently and you can even bring others with you as you do so and that is very very satisfying. But I do find that place a struggle to stay in for too long. I think I become creatively underwhelmed, possibly at a higher rate than others. I need to move, I need to feel the beauty of naivety once more, I crave it.
In the summer whilst I was travelling I decided to start a screenwriting course, something that never occurred to me to have a go at before (travelling is the best for sparking weird and wonderful possibilities for me). On the course I found myself deep in beginner 's mind in a way I hadn’t been for some time. I knew nothing about this discipline and that was very refreshing. I approached the course from the perspective of play, in other words, no goals, no pressure, just for fun, and as I moved through it and settled on a creative concept that started to come to life, I felt an increasing need that I must complete this vision and send it somewhere. A pitch and a pilot episode became a new goal and it even felt in my reach as a lot of work had been done to get it underway.
I found myself becoming magnetised to this idea of sending it off to be considered for a commission. It was the naivety of this that hooked me in. I tried not to talk to many people who had tried before me, adults love to share their cynism like nothing else. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve shared my vision and work with others and they’ve found a million holes in it, it’s actually crazy how many more people will want to put red line through your ideas versus help you get there. Now, as a full fledged grown-up, my rational mind knows that the chance of me getting any positive feedback, let alone a commission on my first ever screenplay concept are slim to say the least. Yet I don’t care, I am finding the process of asking ‘what if?’ completely addictive. This is actually the fun part, this the joyous time, being creative with the idea and dreaming, if anything did happen this would be the time I probably would reflect on and say - that was beautiful, so naive, so creatively free. The trick now it to keep going whilst holding the dream with a lightness. I need to not get into a position where I am not completely devastated when the first person comes back and tells me it’s actually pretty shit (inevitable), but to when that happens to instead move on to the next idea, or to take on feedback and make it better. It’s a side project and I’m not putting all my eggs into it, but what I have taken away is this need to indulge in a beginner's mind. I am inspired by all those kids I got to chat to about their ideas and dreams and to take some of that childlike energy and revel in the joy of unrealistic possibilities. In this stage of life I see naivety as a gift and I’m actively seeking it out in 2024.