I keep coming back to that story about Franz Kafka and the little girl who lost her doll.
Instead of telling her to “move on,” he wrote letters from the doll, describing its travels. And when he finally gave her a new doll, the last note read:
“Everything you love will probably be lost. But in the end, love will return in another way.”
Whether the story is true or not, its wisdom lands like a hand on the shoulder: change is not the enemy; it is the doorway. The travels are supposed to change us.
This is true not only for people and organizations, but even for our most “timeless” traditions. Five hundred years ago, Christmas looked like a rowdy street carnival. Three hundred years ago in parts of the United States, it was not celebrated and sometimes even illegal. Two hundred years ago, the Santa we picture today did not exist.
What feels eternal is actually a long, creative remix. Traditions are inventions that have been loved for a very long time.
And maybe that’s the invitation living underneath so many endings: not to erase what was, but to let it travel. To let it transform. To let it return with new edges, new meaning, new usefulness.
A small practice: The Return Letter (6 minutes)
If change is a doorway, here’s a way to walk through it with intention. Take six minutes. Bring a pen. Keep it imperfect. That’s where the truth usually hides.
Step 1: Name the “Old Doll” (60 seconds)
Choose one thing that shifted for you: a habit, a role, a relationship, a routine, a belief, a project, an identity.
Write: “The old doll I lost was ______.”
Step 2: Let it write you back (3 minutes)
Write a short note as if it’s coming from the thing you lost, now traveling and transforming. Use these prompts:
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“I didn’t disappear. I became ______.”
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“What I taught you was ______.”
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“What I’m returning as now is ______.”
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“The next small step you can take is ______.”
Step 3: Make it real (2 minutes)
Circle one line from your letter and turn it into a micro-prototype, something you can test in the real world:
In the next 7 days, I will ______ (for 10 minutes / once / three times).
Tiny. Specific. Doable.
Step 4: Share back (30 seconds)
Reply to this email with any one of the following:
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Your “old doll” sentence
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The line: “I didn’t disappear. I became ____.”
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Your 7-day experiment
I read every reply. And if you send yours, I’ll respond with one prompt to help you keep going.
The School of Creativity and Innovation: the work keeps unfolding
For the School of Creativity and Innovation, this season has opened a new well of possibilities: new labs, sprints, experiments, and stories. More importantly, it has deepened our community of doers, dreamers, and creators, people willing to question the “old dolls” of how we work, learn, and lead.
We truly could not have done any of this without you. Your curiosity, feedback, collaborations, and presence are the letters that kept the journey unfolding.
What’s coming next feels like a bolder chapter: more collaborative labs, richer content, new learning sprints, and braver experiments in how we design creative, human-centered futures together.
The form may change. The structures may evolve. Yet the heart remains: a community committed to learning, renewal, and building better worlds together.
Thank you for walking with us. The travels have changed us. And we are still traveling.
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From past to present to possible: St. Petersburg, Florida
We’re carrying this same mindset into our work in St. Petersburg.
We’ve been fortunate to help lead some of the only community-wide conversations with residents, neighborhood voices, and local partners about the future of the Historic Gas Plant District and Tropicana Field. Rather than only grieving what was taken or lost, we’re honoring those stories and using them as ink for a new chapter.
Through a people-centered process, we’re connecting lived experience, hard history, and bold imagination to envision a thriving, equitable, and creative neighborhood.
We’re not just asking, “What was?”
We’re asking, “What could return here, in a new and better way?”
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Taking the work on the road
Because of this momentum, the School of Creativity and Innovation was invited to speak at the Sarasota Tech Summit, and the event was truly top-notch: sharp programming, standout speakers, and real talent in the room.
I shared our Historic Gas Plant + Tropicana Field Community Design Sprint, where we take lived experience from residents and translate it into community-authored assets: design briefs, visual prototypes, and decision-ready concepts that can reshape how urban development gets done.
The feedback was overwhelming and consistent: people are hungry for more meaningful community engagement to tackle the region’s biggest social and economic challenges.
Below is a sample of what that looks like in action. If you want to bring this approach to your neighborhood, project, or city, reply to this email and let’s collaborate.
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A Glimpse Through the Next Doorway
As we step through the next doorway together, I want to share a short video that offers a glimpse of what we’re building right now: new content, new programming, and a few fresh experiments designed to help more people move from insight to action. It’s the same spirit that runs through the Kafka story and our community design sprints: we don’t rush past what’s changing. We listen, we translate what we’re learning, and we prototype what could return in a new and better way, for our work, our teams, and our communities.
If this resonates, I’d love your signal. Watch the video, and reply to this email with one sentence: what part resonates most and why? Your feedback helps us shape what we create next, with you in the room.
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As we step further into 2026, we’re carrying the Kafka lesson with us: the doll doesn’t come back the same, but love has a way of returning… redesigned.
So here’s our invitation to you, our community of doers, dreamers, and creators:
Hit reply and say hi.
Tell us one of these:
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How did your “new letters” experiment go? What did you try this year when something changed?
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What “lost doll” are you finally ready to release in 2026? A habit, a structure, a story, a way of working.
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What new love returned for you, in a new form? A collaboration, a routine, a renewed purpose, a surprising opportunity.
No polished story needed. A few lines are perfect.
Because this community isn’t built on broadcasts. It’s built on replies. And we’d love to hear what your travels have changed.
With gratitude,
Steve
The School of Creativity and Innovation
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