Add to the Canvas

Life is a call to serve beauty

Hello Inspired Leaders,

The world is filled with beauty. 

With inventions like smartphones that revolutionized how we connect with each other to social media that changed the face of communication, to streaming services that ensured that we have access to movies on demand, to artificial intelligence, the elephant in the room drilling inroads into the field of finance, medicine and retail, to big data which is making it possible to analyze the huge information at our disposal to improve business and insight into the consumer behaviour to electric vehicles, internet of things, renewable energy, drones, virtual and augmented reality etc. 

Friends who finished their degrees, folks who started their businesses, colleagues who got promotions at work, contemporaries who sold out their first show, protégés who launched their first podcast, families who delivered their babies, uncles who celebrated their anniversaries. These all show one thing, miracles are happening around us every day. 

A lot has been said about the huge distraction on social media. About how different content gives us shots of dopamine and we relax and forget what we need to do. As a creativity coach I agree that these are serious issues which affect our productivity. But as a content strategist I see this differently. Creation is a call for expression. And humans will use every medium to perpetuate their art and content regardless of the medium available to them. Whether it’s print or digital medium, even if all that’s available is a giant empty canvas with nothing but pencils and charcoal. 

However there’s a challenge, people get carried away, staring at the beauty of life that they forget that they are contributors and not observers or critics. We could spend a lifetime discussing the wonder of automobiles and the advancement of science. The complexity of human anatomy or the beauty of art. The eccentricities of business and the advancement of technology. We can forget ourselves on the path of adulation forgetting that our assignment here is to add to the ongoing conversation and we are supposed to be busy.

There’s an ongoing conversation in your field, industry and your space, in your department and class. you’re a different shade of colour, a new stroke of brush, a dynamic hue, a never seen before pattern that has a place on the huge canvas that life is. Get on it. Beauty is a tonic of life, but it doesn’t end there. You must make some available for those who are here and those who will come after you. Life is a call to serve beauty. It’s the least you could do. This week, look out for expressions that is in alignment with your gifts and call and engage with it. Reach out with it, dazzle us with it, help people with it, improve people's lives with it. You are a purveyor of miracles, a pipeline of wonder, a canvas of manifestations. Enjoy life as much as you make contributions to it. Give people something to talk about. A song to dance to, art to cherish, a book to read, products to solve their problems, and gifts to make their lives better. Create something, do something, serve something. 

If your boss at work whom you have no personal business transfers some cash to your account. The first question that comes to your mind is, “What for?” The same way you should be curious that you have gifts in your life that you did not put there. You should seek every means to find out its purpose and do what the purpose demands. Have a busy week doing purpose and breakthrough from with within.

Abiola Iyiola,

Creative Director,

AI Leadership Consult