Speech by Mary Helsaple for the National Association of Women Business Owners.

I believe that I was asked to speak here today because it seems my activities traverse a lot of ground between the World of Business and the World of Creative Art.  As Jan calls it: "From Dynamometers to Watercolors".

Really the two worlds complement each other. Through the discipline and responsibilities of business I have learned many of the skills listed on the pages I have handed out to you. They have helped me focus, understand and develop the storytelling ability in my painting and to manage a growing, complex company.  Being constantly challenged by filmmaking, traveling and business, I have learned to look as things from many points of view.  It is he subject of one of the paintings in my portfolio.  I have been able to apply the skills of decision-making and risk-taking in every idea I have for a painting or managing the complexities of the SuperFlow business.  If you look at the handout page on Brain Traits, I guess you could say that the left and the right sides of my brain have quite a dialogue going.

I believe the ability to traverse such a broad field requires people to develop two essential skills:

·        The ability to tap into their Creativity in any situation.

·        The ability to engage in Critical or Comparative Thinking.  

Carl Sagan* called it, 

Creativity and the Scientific Method

He described this experience as: "being simultaneously filled with wonder and a reasonable amount of skepticism". 

It is this ability and the capability that sets humans apart from all other living things. Discipline, Planning, Observation, Skepticism, Creativity, and Perseverance all with a dose of blind confidence really works wonders in solving problems and conflicts in the work and the studio.

Let me tell you a few stories about how I learned some of these things. During one of our trips into the rainforests of Peru, I observed a remarkable thing. On film shoots, we must take a lot of complex and technically sophisticated equipment to get special types of scenes. We not only have to understand this equipment, but we must bring spares parts and tools to fix what ever breaks.  

No camera stores or radio shacks to run to for electronic parts or cables.  It’s 200 miles to the nearest dirt road and then the store may not even have a warm Pepsi. You recall those great shots of running animals or people on Discovery or National Geo? Well to film that you need what is called a stedicam.  This is a 45 lb. devise that that straps around your chest.  It has a stabilized mechanical arm, which holds a heavy 25 lb. film camera.  This allows the filmmaker to walk or run along side of the subject without the camera shaking the picture.  I have walked with this device and it is like carrying an over-loaded back- pack full of canned goods up Barr trail!

We had an English cinematographer who was experienced in the use of this device. The stedicam is worth $20,000, and the camera $100,000. On these trips I’m usually hollering over the roar of the boat motor, " Neal, stop holding our house over the side of the boat"!  He’s filming water reflections and I’m having an anxiety attack.

Well anyway,    yes,    Tony took a tumble over a root, with the stedicam, so it needed a minor repair. The next morning they took it apart.  They found the tiny part that had fallen out of place, and then they were faced with putting it back together. Well, they forgot how.  

During this many hour ordeal a young Peruvian boy who assisted with carrying and chopping brush for them, had sat and observed these two experts fail time and again. This boy had only gone to missionary school though the 6^th grade. Just as Tony was about to give up, the young boy who spoke only Machiguenga and a little Spanish moved a part near Tony’s hand.  Piece.  Piece by piece this young man from memory guided them into putting the device back together.

I try to remember this story at work.  It keeps me from underestimating someone or thinking only my opinion is the correct one.

These filming experiences found us coping with being cut off from every convenience and everything familiar to us. Creatively, I learned nature has a better imagination than I do. This is good ground for finding the limits of your character when:

·        The Ultralight airplane is almost carried off in a flood, 

·        Or when a fish ate a critical ultra light engine part miles from nowhere,

·        Monkeys stole our food, 

·        Ants, snakes & bats invaded our tents. 

One time Neal & I were filming monkeys from a 60-foot tower in the forest.  We would get up before sunrise; slog equipment & cameras down a pitch-black trail to climb into the tower before all the animals & birds began foraging for food.  We had been trying for days to film monkeys finding insects in the leaves.  They were always much too far off.  One day we discovered we had left the telephoto lens back at camp.  So I went back down the tower to retrieve it.  On my way back up the tower, I was 8 feet from the top when Neal called for me to stop and hold very still.  A troop of 50 monkeys was coming towards us.  As I clung to the cross rails and tried desperately not to move because the slightest twitch shook the camera, I was amazed to find I had just become another monkey!  When humans are on the ground they think you are just another predator to avoid. But there I was in their trees.  Some got within 6 feet on me, some sat down and scratched and groomed each other.  One capuchin stared at me, forgetting the nut in his hand till another came along and snatched it.  Here was sibling rivalry in its basic form on another branch of the family tree.  

The times spent filming & photographing animal behavior, I’ve come to the conclusion there are still a lot of behavioral drives at work in the human species. You find it played out all the time at work.  Relationships with other people, and how well we communicate, judgments based on incorrect, biased or insufficient information cause disasters. Poorly managed interpersonal conflicts can lose us business and cost us resources and sometimes even friends.

Our egos may tell us we are not be exactly lions on the Serengeti, but there are sure some similar scenarios. What was that suggestion about picturing your worst enemy naked?? That seems too risky, I suggest try turning them into Howler Monkeys, or an ant swarm.  At the very least your day will be very entertaining.

Over my 25 years working in a male dominated industry I’ve discovered:  Men are for the most part Outward focused.  They seem compelled to compete. They view the world as if they are standing as far out as they can possibly imagine.  They look at what they believe is the whole world or situation.  They make decision based on that perspective.  Women often times are invisible in this universe. 

Men stand back and access their perceived domain and designate how and what they can control or dominate. Women on the other hand view the world Inward then Outward.  Women look at the whole world and search for their place in it.  They see themselves are part of a whole.  When they find where they fit they stand in that spot and then look Outward. They look through an internal lens, which enables them to understand the interrelationships contained in the world.  Women look for relationships and connections. 

We see the world like a multitude of interconnecting circles. The reason I mention this is only to illustrate that conflicts at work, as well as in our personal lives are often center around this Inward / Outward focused position. Recognizing these positions right a way gets us back to resolving the issues instead of re-hashing out our same entrenched positions. 

Ever notice when men are sitting, they raise their arms over their heads, while they are talking to you. Their looking out at their world . They especially do this if someone is standing in their office.  It is a simple throw back to domain or territory marking.  I have seen every male animal do this.  Even Lizards.  Men are unaware they do this! When this happens, I prepare myself for advice, or leave the area.  It’s not worth the confrontation.

Being in tune with where you are, the dynamics of the environment and observing behavior is very important.  It affects the ability we have to see options and solutions and hazards. Honing your skills of observation is by far one of the most important skills for the workplace.   Being prepared & having a ready a response is equally valuable.

I learned this most clearly on another film trip. I took my Nikon N90 camera with my close-up ring-flash, and my insect repellant, and took a walk along a wildlife trail.  On this particular walk I saw very little.  All at once I saw exotic insects everywhere.  Yellow & orange striped grasshoppers, giant walking stick bugs; rhinoceros helmeted beetle.  I was so excited; snapping pictures right & left marveling at my incredible luck.  I then noticed the ground moving beneath my feet.  A million hungry marauding ants were flushing these insects.   My legs up to my knees were covered in army ants.  The camera flew out of me hand, I broad-jumped to a safe spot, all the while carefully removing the tenacious ants.  I got away without a bite, because I remembered that morning to tuck my pants into my socks.

If I had paid closer attention to my environment, like the insects, I would have been able to get out of the way much sooner before being overwhelmed.  

I really admire and learned a lot from the Macheguenga of the Peruvian rainforests. We lived several months with them during filming for our Discovery program “Spirits of the Rainforest”.   With the help of an anthropologist we studied their culture and included them in the story about the rainforest, because they were as much a part of the forest as the otters and the jaguar.

They like many other South American tribes respect both gender visions. The Macheguenga culture is thousands of years old and it is a matriarchal society.  This means females are the generational lines of the tribe.  Men marry into a women’s family. Sisters stay together to help raise each other’s children and care for the physical needs of the family. 

An anthropologist had once taken a shaman to the cinema in Lima.  They saw a Startrek movie.  When Glenn asked what the shaman thought of all that he said, "Oh, I have been there before when I have visited the world of my ancestors during an Ayahuasca ceremony"”

They know nothing of western history, having no written language, only an oral story telling, no number for any quantity in excess of three, and yet their day to day interaction with their friends & family are only slightly different from a mid-western farm family.  The degree of happiness in their life is equal to ours.  They have different expectations. Their degree of happiness is not based on material gain or possessions but rather found in the processes of life. It is a tradition that has endured and one that our society could learn from.

Creativity is a living and breathing thing, and not narrowly confined to the arts.  Just as the world intrudes into the consciousness and expression of the artist, so to should art and creativity seep into, and inspire the world of business. 

My partner Neal said to me the other day; 

"Satisfaction in life is found in the doing of it, not in the ultimate achievements contained within it.  Women seem to understand that much better than men"”  

Once my shock wore off, I picked my winded, unconscious body off the floor; I realized that he must have been paying closer attention than I thought! “  There is hope for some of them yet!