The Vs. Studio Blog

“What gets measured gets managed.” -Peter Drucker

“The most fascinating thing in the world is a mirror.” –Quantified Self article headline

Per Wikipedia, a Rubric is “a set of criteria for grading assignments. Typically presented in table format, rubrics contain evaluative criteria, quality definitions for various levels of achievement, and a scoring strategy.”

Teachers use rubrics to grade assignments. Managers use rubrics to assess employee performance. A key to a good rubric is clarity of criteria. In other words, being clear about what makes a “5” vs. a “3” vs. a “1”, and that the person who is being graded fully understands the criteria.

On that note, what if you gave yourself a rubric and measured your performance at the end of each day or each week?

Commit to doing it for a set period of time. A month, a quarter or even a whole year.

What would you measure? What would be the criteria ? How would you score it?

And what if you gave a close friend, co-worker or loved one (someone we interact with everyday) the same rubric and criteria and asked them to score us? How closely aligned would your scores be with their scores?

If the thought of this exercise frustrates or frightens you, then it might just signal that you should give it a try.

“When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.” -Lao-Tzu

“Comparison is the thief of joy.” -Teddy Roosevelt

“Beware the advice derived from a selective recollection of someone’s path to success. Most people forget to mention the missteps, dead ends, and blind luck that got them where they are.” -Paul Shirley

Stop living who you think you’re supposed to be.

Start living and loving who you actually are.

P.S. – Just keep livin’

“I was waiting for something extraordinary to happen but as the years wasted on nothing ever did unless I caused it.” -Charles Bukowski

Almost every well known actor, writer and director has their own production company. They utilize their clout to find projects and stories they’re passionate about and produce them. As opposed to waiting for the industry to find and do it for them. They’re controlling their artistic destiny.

You can too. Right now.

You don’t have to wait until you’re famous or a big muckety-muck.

All you have to do is adopt the producing mindset.

Start your production company.

Find projects you’re passionate about.

Find others whose taste you respect and want to work with.

Commit to producing with excellence and generosity.

Do this over and over again.

Take control of your artistic destiny.

It’s the way. The only way.

P.S. – “You are my density.”

Telling someone to “work smarter” is useless because it assumes they already know what smarter looks like. If they did, they’d be doing it.
“Work smarter, not harder” is often framed as the opposite of hard work, but working smart is itself a derivative of hard work. You have to work hard just to figure out what working smart means.
Beginners can’t work smart because they don’t yet know what smart looks like. They have to work hard first, building the pattern recognition that makes smart possible. It’s like a chess master spotting the best move instantly; it looks like working smart, but it’s built on thousands of hours of working hard to earn that intuition.
Smarter approaches aren’t universal shortcuts, they’re contextual insights uncovered through deep, sustained effort. -Shane Parrish

Don’t worry about hacks and shortcuts and systems and “working smarter.” Especially at first with something brand new.

That just leads to procrastination and stalling. It’s yet another insidious form of the resistance.

Just get in there and get to work.

Smart follows hard.

“If we are open only to discoveries which will accord with what we know already, we may as well stay shut.” -Alan W. Watts, The Wisdom of Insecurity

“Suffering is whenever you’re not in control.” -Richard Rohr

“We suffer more in imagination than in reality.” -Seneca

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.” -Proverbs 3:5

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too. -poem, “If” by Rudyard Kipling

“I’ve known a great many troubles, most of which never happened.” -Mark Twain

Uncertainty and suffering go hand in hand.

For it’s not so much the actual bad news that sucks as much as it is the anticipation of said news. The not-knowing. That’s where we often spin out.

One thought/mantra to remind yourself in periods of uncertainty is this:

The greater the uncertainty, the greater the opportunity to TRUST.

Trust in yourself and your ability to deal with whatever comes your way. (Look at past examples as confidence boosters.)

Trust in your friends and family to help you through. (Look at past examples as confidence boosters.)

Trust in a divine force that is so much bigger, cosmically intelligent and full of love than you could ever imagine. You’re exactly where you’re supposed to be.

Trust that whatever it is, this too shall pass.

Lastly, trust that almost always, most of the negative things you imagine, won’t happen.

The greater the uncertainty, the greater the opportunity to TRUST.

(If you knew how it was all going to turn it out, then there wouldn’t be any need to trust, right?…Now, where’s the fun in that?)

“He does the work. I do the cleanup. Then we fight.” -Robert Gottlieb, editor, on his working relationship with author, Robert Caro.

“The medium is the message. This is merely to say that the personal and social consequences of any medium – that is, of any extension of ourselves – result from the new scale that is introduced into our affairs by each extension of ourselves, or by any new technology.” -Marshall McLuhan

“A book might be a solo act, but it’s often influenced by a great editor. Few of these professionals get the credit they deserve (and sometimes they’re called agents or spouses.)…When we set out to create, it helps to understand who are collaborators are and to choose them wisely. A well-trained AI, an insightful editor, an A&R person running interference–these are choices. Understand the medium and your resources before you begin.” -Seth Godin

Each artform has its own medium and with it, its own level of collaboration.

Making movies or plays are highly collaborative.

Painting, not so much.

Know yourself. Know your strengths and weaknesses. Know the level of collaboration required by your desired medium.

Your project’s success (and your personal satisfaction) are wholly linked to your collaborators..

Therefore, choose wisely my friend.

P.S. – This great Seth Godin blog post.

P.P.S. – This phenomenal documentary, “Turn Every Page” about the relationship between the author Robert Caro, and his longtime editor, Robert Gottlieb.

“You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, ‘I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along. … You must do the thing you think you cannot do.” -Eleanor Roosevelt

[NICELY]
I got the horse right here
The name is Paul Revere
And here’s a guy that says if the weather’s clear

[NICELY & BENNY]
Can do (I’m picking Valentine )
Can do (‘Cause on the morning line)
This guy says (The guy has got him)
The horse can do (Figured at five to nine) -“Fugue for Tinhorns” from the musical Guys And Dolls

Do what you don’t think you can do.

Because you can.

You…

…Can do.

…Can do.

…Can do.

P.S. – “I Got The Horse Right Here.”

“Many native traditions held clowns and tricksters as essential to any contact with the sacred. People could not pray until they had laughed, because laughter opens and frees from rigid preconception. Humans had to have tricksters within the most sacred ceremonies for fear that they forget the sacred comes through upset, reversal, surprise. The trickster in most native traditions is essential to creation, to birth.” -Byrd Gibbens

‘It’s your outlook on life that counts. If you take yourself lightly and don’t take yourself too seriously, pretty soon you can find the humor in our everyday lives. And sometimes it can be a lifesaver.” -Betty White

“All humor is based on hostility.” -Neil Simon

“Humor is an attitude, a survivor’s way of looking at life. It’s not about telling jokes.” -Michael Shurtleff

A key element I look for in a play to produce as Artistic Director of Vs. Theatre is humor throughout. (It’s also probably the hardest thing to master as a playwright.)

Not jokes.

Actual, situational, truthful humor.

Because if you can get them (the audience) laughing, then you can get them crying.

And make a real and lasting impact.

“Another has done me wrong? Let him see to it. He has his own tendencies, and his own affairs. What I have now is what the common nature has willed, and what I endeavor to accomplish now is what my nature wills.” -Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“If we do not transform our pain, we will most assuredly transmit it.” -Richard Rohr

“Abraham Lincoln occasionally got fuming mad with a subordinate, one of his generals, even a friend. Rather than taking it out on that person directly, he’d write a long letter, outlining his case why they were wrong and what he wanted them to know. Then Lincoln would fold it up, put the letter in the desk drawer, and never send it. Many of these letters survive only by chance.

He knew, as the former emperor of Rome knew, that it’s easy to fight back. It’s tempting to give them a piece of your mind. But you almost always end up with regret. You almost always wish you hadn’t sent the letter. Think of the last time you flew off the handle. What was the outcome? Was there any benefit?” -Ryan Holiday, The Daily Stoic

“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom” -Viktor Frankl

It happens every day. You get a text or email or call that deeply upsets or disappoints you.

Two Things NOT to do.

(1) Send an angry email or text right back at them. Now is not the time. You’re too emotional.

(2) Not do anything. You need to channel that emotion somewhere. Otherwise it will eat away at you.

Instead, follow Lincoln. Sit down and write an email draft (or old school pen and paper). Channel your feelings and frustrations into it. Get it all out. But don’t send it. Just save it.

Then come back the next day and reread your email with a good night’s sleep and a fresh pair of eyes. You’ll either revise it (maybe even with some empathy for their position) and send it, or determine there is no need to send it all.

Either way, you didn’t hold on to or transmit that pain. You transformed it.

“Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail” -Ralph Waldo Emerson

“You’ll find your answer in action, not research.” -Paul Shirley

‘”As you start to walk on the way, the way appears.” -Rumi

When you have an idea that lights you up, rather than do a bunch of research or talk to a bunch of people about it, just take one, small action step.

Research and discussion has its place, but more often than not you will end up losing precious momentum or talk yourself out of the idea.

Your initial action coupled with your iteration and learning from this action is all the research you need.