Strands of Genius: Noun Project's 'Redefining Women' Collection, Les Cintres, Homage to Tim Burton

plus: our thoughts on the root system of resilience and an especially British slide

Feb 24, 2020

WORKING ON | the School of Stolen Genius

LOOKING AHEAD
Feb 17-28: Beersheba Springs, TN
Feb 29-March 15: Nashville, TN (Rosie)
March 1-15: London, UK (Faris)
March 4-6: London, UK | Big TV Festival
March 15-April 15: Mexico City, MX
April 15-May 2: TBD
May 3-May 9: Punta Cana, DR | Miami Ad School
May 9-16: Mexico City, MX

:: WHAT’S NEW & WEEKLY GRATITUDE ::

We enjoyed a relaxing week up in the Cumberland Mountains of TN before we had some guests come and join. The day before everyone arrived, the weather gave us a winter wonderland effect, with a light dusting of snow and temperatures that truly justified the massive fireplaces.

This week, we’re especially thankful for:

a weekend of games and friends, Beersheba Springs, Wholemeal - the mountain house that keeps on giving, Shann&Marina &Morgan&Colin &Madison&Paulie& Cal&Aly &Jared, Paulie’s balls, only one hoverboard injury, the fireman’s pole & the crow’s nest, neon & sparkly chalk, tall swings, short walks, Splendor (one of our favorite games), Sequence (another all time favorite) & that damn Unstable Unicorns game (it was fun before we had so many people), bourbon milk tea/coffee, palo santo cones, Voluspa candles (the best gift, y’all), hot tub time machines, and…. BEETLEJUICE, my first time watching thanks to Jared & Faris *strongly encouraging* it was time.

:: THE LINKS ::

WHAT’S USED BY THE BILLIONS, BUT RARELY PURCHASED BY THOSE WHO USE ‘EM?

Stumped? We’ll give you a clue. Start by thinking about your closet. What’s in there that you’ve got a lot of, but you likely haven’t bought? Hangers, of course! After the industrial revolution, we became owners of many more clothes, and we needed a storage solution. But even as early as the 60s, the New York Times realized that we had more than we needed and began suggesting (pre-)Pinterest projects, for everything from bird feeders to TV antennas. Weirdly interesting read on the origin story and evolution of our relationship with hangers. (Vox)

RE-DEFINING WOMEN: A PUBLIC DOMAIN SYSTEM OF ICONS

We’re big fans of The Noun Project’s icons, which we find ourselves often using for presentations. The company has an expansive collection, but as they note, “when you search the web for images related to words like ‘entrepreneur’ or ‘leader’ or ‘boss,’ the majority of results are images of men. Search for words like ‘nurse,’ ‘teacher’ or ‘caregiver’ are, by and large, women.” And so they set out to fix that, hosting Iconathons in SF, LA and NYC to think visually about how to depict women in professional capacities. More on symbolic annihilation (yes, that’s a thing), and icons from the new Re-Defining Women collection (which you can use for free!) here. (The Noun Project)

HOMAGE TO TIM BURTON

After watching Beetlejuice for the first time, Rosie started going down a Tim Burton rabbit hole. These 8 short films by different artists, all pay homage to Tim Burton aesthetics and storytelling in their own way. They may not lighten up your Monday, but they’re beautiful and worth a watch. (Vimeo)

:: WHAT WE’RE THINKING ABOUT: THE ROOT SYSTEM OF RESILIENCE ::

Here’s the situation. You’re headed home for your sibling’s wedding. You jump in an Uber to head to the airport, and just as you begin the 45 minute ride to the airport, you get a notification on your phone: Your flight has been canceled. Less into phone calls, you decide to tweet to the airline explaining the situation. By the time you arrive to the airport, you’ve been re-booked on another flight. It’s no longer a direct flight, and you’ll be getting in late, but you’ll make it to the wedding.

In this case, do you perceive that you are lucky? Or unlucky?

On one hand, your flight got canceled. You went from having a direct flight to one with an annoying layover. And you’ll arrive later than you had planned. The airline sold you a service that it can’t deliver on.

On the other hand, you were able to get rebooked. And not just that, but you didn’t have to pick up the phone call or wait a minute on hold. It all happened on the ride to the airport. And who cares if there’s a layover? You’ll still be arriving before the main wedding festivities.

For us, this wasn’t a hypothetical situation - This was exactly what happened when we were headed from NYC to Nashville to see my sister get married years ago. We felt relieved and lucky (though also slightly inconvenienced), but when we recounted the tale with relief, people loudly wondered how we could see ourselves as lucky in this instance, when we were clearly wronged.

Growing up, my mom had a common refrain: “You aren’t in control of what happens, but you are in control of how you react.” I often point back to this refrain as the root system of my resilience, because it’s easier to be resilient when you choose to look at the situation in a positive light, or at least as “not that bad.”

This weekend, we talked with so many of our friends about attitude, shifting perspectives, self-care and resilience. They’re all related. When you have a strong practice of self-care and listening to your mind and body, you start to build up an arsenal of tools & techniques, even coping mechanisms. That way, when life throw you lemons, you’ve already got the lemonade recipe on recall, and the pitcher stowed away, even if it’s a little dusty and hidden away on a hard to reach shelf.

Some weeks, you’ll call upon that recipe only to find it’s slightly off: The lemons are less juicy, or you happen to be out of sugar at the house. What worked in the past doesn’t always work in the future. But what *didn’t* work in the past, could possibly work in the future. It’s one reason why it’s worth talking to friends about struggles and solutions. There’s no one right answer, it’s just a constant quest we go on, working with ourselves, to build our own root system of resilience.

:: AND NOW… AN ESPECIALLY BRITISH SLIDE ::

Ben Evans gave this presentation at Davos, and while the whole presentation is worth checking out, we couldn’t help but chuckle at this side that is so very British.

If we can ever be of help to you, even outside of a formal engagement, please don’t hesitate to let us know. Getting to meet like-minded folks is one of the best parts of living nomadically, so please let us know if you see if we'll be in a city near you :)

rockON,
faris & rosie & ashley | your friends over at geniussteals.co

@faris is always tweeting
@rosieyakob hangs out on instagram
@ashley also writes for deaf, tattooed & employed

Know someone who could use some inspiration in their inbox? Send ‘em our way!

It's called Genius Steals because we believe ideas are new combinations and that nothing can come from nothing. But copying is lazy. We believe the best way to innovate is to look at the best of that which came before and combine those elements into new solutions.

Co-Founders Faris & Rosie are award-winning strategists and creative directors, writers, consultants and public speakers who have been living on the road/runway since March 2013, working with companies all over the world. Our Director of Operations is nomadic like us, our accounting team is based out of Washington, our company is registered in Tennessee, and our collaborators are all over the world. Being nomadic allows us to go wherever clients need us to be, and to be inspired by the world in between.

Hit reply and let’s talk about how we might be able to work together :)

SPEAKING
We're currently booking speaking gigs for the year.
Check out full descriptions and key learnings from our talks on here:
http://bit.ly/TalkDescriptions2019

Strands of Genius