If you’re a teacher, the best thing you can do for your students is to convey your love and enthusiasm for the subject matter. That is far more important than just conveying your knowledge.
Knowledge is abundant.
Enthusiasm is scarce.
When we see it in someone, it sparks our curiosity. Which is exactly what you want to do for your students.
Put another way…When you’re lit up, they’re lit up.
“Then God looked over all He had made, and He saw that it was very good!” -Genesis 1:31
“Art must be an expression of love or it is nothing.” -Marc Chagall
“That’s what I consider true generosity: You give your all and yet you always feel as if it costs you nothing.” -Simone de Beauvoir
“Every minute of every hour of every day you are making the world, just as you are making yourself, and you might as well do it with generosity and kindness and style.” -Rebecca Solnit
“Art is the work of a human being- something a person does with generosity to touch someone else to make a change for the better.” -Seth Godin
“Making art is an act of love and making love to the world.” -Frank Gehry
Create. Make art, and strive for excellence in your art, solely because you love and care that deeply.
It’s one of the most generous acts you can do.
“Even if you’re not a teacher, be a teacher. Share your ideas. Don’t take for granted your education. Rejoice in what you learn and spray it.” -Tim Minchin
If you really want to test how well you know something, then go try and teach it to a child.
If they don’t understand it (no matter how complex it is), you don’t fully understand it. Keep learning.
P.S. – The Feynman Technique and “Plus, Minus, Equals“
“People pay to see others believe in themselves.” -Kim Gordon
Maybe the only difference between where you are now and where you want to be is the power of your belief.
Do you really believe in yourself and what you want to do?
If yes, keep going.
If not, get off the stage and make room for someone who does.
“It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.” -Harry S. Truman
“Criticism is something we can avoid easily by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing.” -Aristotle
Your true contribution to the world can be measured by how much criticism you’re willing to accept and how much credit you’re willing to reject.
(And if you’re in a position of leadership, realize that many of your greatest contributions are about preventing problems before they arise. You’ll never get credit for these. But you will most assuredly get criticized when things go wrong. That’s okay. That’s the job you signed up for. Accept it willingly. Do it dutifully.)
Discipline is the strongest form of self-love.
Delaying instant gratification for the sake of something bigger, for your dreams, is the best gift you can give yourself.
The choices you make and the actions you take, reveal the amount of your love.
The future you is depending on the present you. What’s it gonna be?…
“The advice I like to give anybody who’ll listen to me, is not to wait around for inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work. If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightning to strike you in the brain, you are not going to do an awful lot of work…All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself. Things occur to you. If you’re sitting around trying to dream up a great idea, you can sit there a long time before anything happens. But if you just get to work, something will occur to you and something else will occur to you and something else that you reject will push you in another direction. Inspiration is absolutely unnecessary and somehow deceptive. You feel like you need this great idea before you can get down to work, and I find that’s almost never the case.” -Chuck Close
“When inspiration does arrive, it is invariably energizing. But it is not something to rely on. An artistic life cannot be built solely around waiting. Inspiration is out of our control and can prove hard to find. Effort is required and invitations are to be extended.” –The Creative Act by Rick Rubin
“The amateur tweets. The pro works.” –Turning Pro by Steven Pressfield
Amateurs rely on inspiration and the fickleness of feelings to get to work.
Professionals just get to work. Day in. Day out. It’s who they are. What they do.
Decide ahead of time what you’re gonna do and know why you’re doing it. Then take massive and continuous action.
Be A Pro.
“If it be now, ’tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now,
yet it will come. The readiness is all.” –Hamlet
“So much of life isn’t about intelligence or luck but putting yourself in a position for success. The cash-rich investor thrives in crashes. The well-rested athlete outperforms the exhausted star. The student who studies daily aces the pop quiz. The employee who leaves early gets to the meeting with the CEO on time while the other person sits in the unanticipated traffic. All seem lucky, but they’ve positioned themselves to succeed. Master your circumstances before they master you.” -Shane Parrish
“It is good to carry some powdered rouge in one’s sleeve. It may happen that when one is sobering up or waking from sleep, a samurai’s complexion may be poor. At such a time it is good to take out and apply some powdered rouge.” -excerpt from Hagakure: The Book Of The Samurai by Yamamoto Tsunetomo (translated by William Scott Wilson)
“Being unexpected adds to the weight of a disaster, and being a surprise has never failed to increase a person’s pain. For that reason, nothing should ever be unexpected by us. Our minds should be sent out in advance to all things and we shouldn’t just consider the normal course of things, but what could actually happen. For is there anything in life that Fortune won’t knock off its high horse if it pleases her?” -Seneca, Moral Letters
“The story of spontaneity can be misleading. We don’t see all the practice and preparation that goes into priming an artist for the spontaneous event to come through. Every work contains a lifetime of experience. Great artists often labor to make their work appear effortless. Sometimes they might spend years meticulously crafting and refining a composition to appear as if it was made in a day or in a moment.” –The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin
You can’t control when or whether you even get the gig.
You can control doing everything in your power so that you’re ready for the gig.
The readiness is all.
Chemistry (chemistry)
Chemistry (chemistry)
You and me, we’ve got (chemistry)
Chemistry
You and me, we’ve got (chemistry)
Baby you and me
Could this be that (chemistry)
Chemistry, baby you and me -song “Chemistry” by Arcade Fire
“I love the chemistry that can be created onstage between the actors and the audience. It’s molecular, even, the energies that can go back and forth. I started in theater, and when I first went into movies, I felt that my energy was going to blow out the camera.” -Glenn Close
For the director…
You can’t plan for chemistry. Nor you can force it or fake it.
But if you’re blessed to have chemistry in your production, do everything in your power to nurture it and allow for it to flourish.
For it’s the magical X factor that will make your production one for the ages.
“The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant searching for fine pearls. When he finds a pearl of great price, he goes and sells all that he has and buys it.” -Matthew 13:45
“For it is said that humans are never satisfied, that you give them one thing and they want something more. And this is said in disparagement, whereas it is one of the greatest talents the species has and one that has made it superior to animals that are satisfied with what they have.” –The Pearl, a novel by John Steinbeck
“There is perhaps nothing worse than reaching the top of the ladder and discovering that you’re on the wrong wall.” -Joseph Campbell
“You find out when you reach the top / you’re on the bottom.” -Bob Dylan, song Idiot Wind
Whether you go up the ladder or down it,
you 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 (Stephen Mitchell translation)
One moment from an improv show (“The Armando Diaz Experience” at the Improv Olympic in Chicago) I saw over two decades ago that still haunts me…
The performer ended his opening monologue with these words:
“I got everything I thought I ever wanted and I’m still not happy.”
Silence.
You could hear a pin drop. You could feel the audience breathing with him through the sadness.
Then, the moment ended. The scenes and the comedy began…
What are you searching for?
What ladder are you climbing? Why are you even climbing it?
What’s your pearl of great price?
Knowing which one to pick is priceless.
P.S. – Pictured above is the Melo Melo Pearl. One of the rarest and most valuable pearls in the world.
The Vs. Studio Blog