Author, Speaker, Artist
When I applied to be part of The Domino Project, Seth Godin’s new brainchild, powered by Amazon, the application process was inspiring yet intense. Most of the questions came fairly easily and actually helped provide some clarity for me in terms of where I’ve been and where I’m going.
There was one question specifically that annoyed me as it made my head hurt a bit:
Skill testing question #2 *
A turtle and a giraffe leave Cleveland, walking in different directions. The turtle walks at 5 meters per second, the giraffe at 12 meters per second. What color is the street sign?
At first, what I thought I was supposed to do was analyze the question, figure out what elements were not important and then possibly do some research on Cleveland signs. But no, that made my head spin and didn’t feel right.
I skipped the question until I finished the rest of the application and by that time, was low on energy. I took a short food break and came back to the question again, with revitalized energy and a different approach this time. I told myself to answer the question in a way that felt right to me. So instead of analyzing the answer, I began to imagine one. Suddenly a story began pouring out of me and this answer turned out to be my favorite of the bunch.
The color of the street sign doesn’t matter. The characters in the story and what they stand for do.
Turtle spends his life looking down on the objects right in front of him. He sees what’s immediately next but lacks the ability to look beyond at what’s possible.
Giraffe spends her life with a head up in the sky. Prone to acting out-of-character when separated from her natural environment, she sees what’s possible but is afraid to act.
Turtle, a young boy from Cleveland, has much potential but little direction. Giraffe, an inspiring young gal, feels a desire for something but isn’t yet sure what that is.
They’re both searching for a sign, a green light, and a signal for what’s next… it’s a message they are looking for. The color never really matters.
The lesson is that sometimes we have to look at things several times to discover the right way for us. There’s no one right way to do things and we don’t have to live, or answer questions, how everyone expects us to.