I fly a hundred thousand miles or more each year, and usually when I get off my plane I’m met by the driver of a black car. I’ve probably talked with hundreds of drivers doing the same job, chauffeuring people like me around and hustling for tips. In St. Louis, my client regularly hired the same young guy to meet my plane. He liked to talk to me about his work. No one told him to do that, he just started talking. In one conversation I asked him: Who do you work for? He said all his business was with two companies. I asked, do they know you? What’s your specialty? He said other car services required a half day’s notice, but he would come if they called at the last minute. Also, he was willing to drive long-distance: if they needed a ride from St. Louis to Chicago, he’d get on the highway.

I said, if you’re valuable to them, if you’ve got a special niche, one of those companies might be willing to commit to a long-term arrangement with you, so they know they can always get a ride from you when they want it. And if they’re willing to make a formal arrangement, you could probably find a business partner who would put up some money to buy some cars.

This advice wasn’t special. I’ve given it to other drivers and equivalent advice to lots of other solo practitioners in different businesses over the years. But the next time I saw this young man, he said, “I want to tell you something. I’m no longer just a driver. I got a partner and we bought two Lincolns. I own the company.” He wasn’t rich, but the whole way he talked about his life had changed: I own the company.

Psychologists call this self-authorizing behavior. This young man changed his behavior and made himself the author of his own life. No one had told him to talk to me while he drove me to my conference. No one had told him to act on what I said. No one told him how to seek out someone in his community who could put up money to buy two cars. But he saw that his life – and almost everyone’s life – is like that moment in the old Western movies when a townsperson rides back into town with the bad news: “We’re on our own. The cavalry isn’t coming.” To me, that moment in the movie, when a man rides in, dusty, exhausted, and grim, shows the key existential moment in creativizing. It’s the moment that you realize no one else is going to save you. You’re bankrupt and no one is going to bail you out; your marriage is broken and it’s not going to get fixed; you’ve got an illness and it can’t be wished away; you have the same unrealized dream you’ve always had, and no one but you can make it come true. The feeling at the moment is hard to take, but it clears your vision. Now you see what the townspeople in the Western see: if we’re going to get rescued, we’ll have to rescue ourselves.

Of course, we all try to put that moment off. We deny. We criticize. We blame. Everyone does it– people come to me all the time with stories of the outrageous bad luck they’ve had, the unfairness and stupidity of the people they had to work with, the outrages committed by the evildoers who’ve done them wrong. Some martial vast evidence to prove the thesis that life sucks. It’s like what you hear on political talk shows, at either end of the spectrum: the other side is not just wrong, they are crazy, immoral and evil – probably all three. Even if these views are sometimes correct, they aren’t any help if what you want is to creativize. Because that kind of thinking comes from a position of reaction, of criticism. People talking that way are not self-authorizing; they’re just criticizing, saying everything that’s wrong with what others do but nothing about what would work better. But innovation can’t be done by critics. It takes authors.

When I hear people stuck in the reactionary mode, people who are too busy critiquing and explaining and blaming to self-authorize and start building something new, I ask them: okay, well, what would you do? Let’s say you’re right and people around you are crazy. What would a sane person do? Let’s say this or that member of Congress is an idiot. How would you solve the problem? Forget your vicious boss for a moment, your undermining parents. What would a good boss say? What would good parents do? These questions shift your thinking because they stop you from endlessly moving away from something, and start you moving toward something new – that is, they start you innovating.

As you think through your innovation goals, notice your feelings. Are you feeling helpless or impatient? Are you waiting for the cavalry to come charging to the rescue? Well, I’m sorry. The cavalry isn’t coming. Do you feel stagnant or stuck? Is there always a critique on the tip of your tongue? These are signs that you aren’t self-authorizing. Instead, try this:

• Picture what you want.
• See it clearly.
• Now picture someone who could advise you about taking a possible next step. Someone who could help you answer the question: “What could I do to make this work?”
• Find that person. Have a conversation. Don’t criticize their ideas, just collect possibilities, imagine how the story could go if it had a happy ending. Be an author, not a critic.
• Then try one of that person’s suggestions or one of your own ideas.

Without anyone telling you to, do an experiment in your own life. Start a new chapter. Move your story forward.