“Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Pain + Reflection = Progress.” -Ray Dalio
“The trick, researchers say, is realizing that a prerequisite to motivation is believing we have authority over our actions and surroundings. To motivate ourselves, we must feel like we are in control.” – Charles Duhigg, Smarter, Faster Better
Struggling? Find the thing or project that gives you E.P.O.
E = Enthusiasm
P = Progress
O = Ownership
What can you be highly enthusiastic about? Something that gets you out of bed in the morning and fired up. Because we and the rest of the world need your enthusiasm. Badly.
What’s something that you can track your progress? Remember change isn’t linear. There will be many bumps on the road. But over a long enough period of time, you can definitely measure your progress. To paraphrase Peter Drucker, “if you can measure it, you can manage it.”
What’s something that you have ownership of? Meaning you have control over whether it gets done and the way it gets done. Hopefully with excellence and generosity.
“What does it mean that success is as dangerous as failure? Whether you go up the ladder or down it, your position is shaky. When you stand with your two feet on the ground, you will always keep your balance.” –Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu (translated by Stephen Mitchell)
“If you don’t eat yer meat, you can’t have any pudding.” -Pink Floyd, “Another Brick In The Wall”
“The secret of happiness is not to do what you like to do, but to learn to like what you have to do.” -King George V
Let’s face it, even if you’re living the dream, doing the exact job you love, there are tons of un-fun things you still have to do. Necessary things in order to do what you love. (I don’t know a single actor who loves learning lines, for example.) That’s where discipline, having a big vision and knowing your why kick in. Along with having a great attitude (“I get to do this Vs. “I have to do this.”)
Producing, an often thankless job, comes to mind. There are a lot of details, a lot of tasks and a lot of moving parts you’d rather not engage in.
But if you lean into these tasks, carry them out to the absolute best of your ability, your reward will be great.
Which is, you get to make the art you love and create a great experience for your fellow artists and the audience.
“No, the jungle wasn’t evil. It was indifferent. So, too, was the world. Evil, then, must be the negation of something man had added to the world. Ultimately, it was caring about something that made the world liable to evil. Caring. And then the caring gets torn asunder. Everybody dies, but not everybody cares. It occurred to Mellas that he could create the possibility of good or evil through caring. He could nullify the indifferent world. But in so doing he opened himself up to the pain of watching it get blown away.” -Karl Malantes, Matterhorn
Karl Malantes was a senior at Yale and awarded a Rhodes Scholarship. Instead of going to Oxford–which the military would allow–he enlisted in active military duty and went to Vietnam. In the phenomenal Ken Burns doc, “The Vietnam War,” he talks about his decision. While personally against the war, Malantes felt an overriding calling to help other soldiers through his service.
He survived and years later he set out to write a novel chronicling his experience.
It took him thirty years.
The result…“Matterhorn”, one of the greatest war novels ever written. I urge you to read it. You’ll forever be altered.
Freedom isn’t free. And regardless of your feelings on war, our soldiers are heroes and we can’t say thank you enough.
Matterhorn will remind you why it’s important to do so. Not just today. But every day.
I often end these blog posts with the sentence, “Go make your art.”
And while many readers of this blog are other artists, the sentence applies to anyone.
Recall our definition of art: “doing something that might not work in service of others.”
Whatever industry you’re in, whatever you’re trying to do, whatever change you’re trying to make, you’re taking a risk. A leap of faith. You have no idea if it will work out, but you’re going forward anyway. Because you care enough to try.
Thank you for your courage and your attempt at excellence and generosity. We are all the beneficiaries.
“The first messenger, that gave notice of Lucullus’ coming was so far from pleasing Tigranes that, he had his head cut off for his pains; and no man dared to bring further information. Without any intelligence at all, Tigranes sat while war was already blazing around him, giving ear only to those who flattered him.” -Plutarch, Lives
Care way more about the message.
Care way less about the messenger.
We’re all deeply flawed, but we’re still trying to do the best we can with what we have. That in & of itself is heroic.
Look If you had One shot Or one opportunity To seize everything you ever wanted In one moment Would you capture it Or just let it slip? -Eminem, “Lose Yourself”
In the spirit of the Breeders Cup this weekend, here’s a post about horse racing and art…
My good friend Joe is hands down one of the best thoroughbred handicappers in the country. Besides his mathematical capacity, his preternatural ability to understand odds and his pure love of the sport, Joe is also very disciplined. He bets little or none on the races where he doesn’t have an edge. He loads up on the few where he feels he does.
A bunch of us college friends were together for this year’s Kentucky Derby (all thanks to Joe). The Derby race in particular is notoriously tough to handicap because of (a) the longer distance, (b) the young age and relative inexperience of the horses, and (c) it’s a twenty horse field. That being said, I’ve seen Joe win the Derby many times. (Pictured above is “Big Brown” who won the 2008 Kentucky Derby. Joe’s bet and win on that race is the stuff of legends at Churchill Downs.)
This year Joe was feeling really good about a horse, “Rock Your World.” He made a considerable bet and we followed suit (albeit in much smaller amounts).
Our enthusiasm quickly waned when at the first quarter pole, Rock Your World was dead last.
Gulp.
Things didn’t improve much from there.
He finished seventeenth.
Joe, usually stoic and equanimous in such losing moments (“You win some, you lose some Clarko.”), was livid. He repeatedly yelled (through various expletives), “I just wanted a chance! I just wanted a chance!” He added, “The horse never had a chance to run.”
What did he mean?
Well, through a combination of jockey error and bad luck, Rock Your World was boxed in by other horses at the start. A horrible break. When that happens, it’s nearly impossible to recover. Hence, a great horse (was among the favorites) finishing seventeenth. Joe wasn’t mad that Rock Your World lost or that he lost. He was mad that the horse never had a chance to run. Never had a chance to compete. Never had a chance to show what he could do.
It’s fine to get beat. You just want to get beat doing your best. You can live with someone else being better that day.
So what does this have to do with making art?
I’m not sure. Other than, how will you find out how good you are? How good you can be? How you measure up against the greats?…
…If you never run the race.
You gotta give yourself the chance.
Find what you’re passionate about. What you dream of. What challenges you to the max. And do it.
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