“You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.” -James Clear
Talking about your big dreams and plans over a hot cup of coffee with a close friend who patiently listens and encourages you is awesome. You’ll leave the conversation feeling amazing. Lit up. Ready to take on the world.
But if you don’t create systems that enable you to take continuous action towards achieving those dreams, especially on the days when you’re not feeling particularly inspired, which is most days, it will all just be coffee talk.
“They’re stuck in a job they don’t like. They’re stuck working for a boss they don’t like. They’re stuck on a team they don’t like…I just tell them, ‘Be great.’ The reality of life is that you can’t just always quit your job. You can’t just always go to your boss and say, ‘Give me the promotion, or I’m out of here.’ So when you’re stuck, you’ve gotta find it within yourself to say, ‘Ok, this is where I am. And if I’m going to be here, I’m going to be great.’ The benefit is, first, “it always feels great to be great.” And, second, “if you’re great at your job, typically other people and companies find out, so it creates opportunities.” -Mark Cuban
“This is something a teacher told me years ago, and he’s right: even if you’re auditioning for something that you know you’re never going to get or for something you read and didn’t like—if you get a chance to act in a room that somebody else has paid rent for, then you’re given a free chance to practice your craft. And in that moment, you should act as well as you can. Because when you act as well as you can, there’s no way the people who have watched you will forget it. So it leads to opportunities, but more importantly, at the end of the day, all that matters is the work. Everybody knows that. If I show up one day and the work I’m doing isn’t any good, then I’m just a guy who’s not acting well…So I would say it to anybody starting out: if you’re given a chance to act, take those words and bring them alive. If you do that, something good will transpire ultimately.” -Philipp Seymour Hoffman
“Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.” -Arthur Ashe
Feeling stuck in your job, in your art, in your life?
Wanna get unstuck?
Focus on being great where you are now. Even if you don’t like it.
One of three things will happen if you lean in and do become great. Perhaps all three at once.
(1) You might realize you do love the thing after all.
(2) Someone will find you with an amazing opportunity that is your perfect fit.
(3) You’ll have learned some valuable new skills and developed incredible grit.
I’ll close with this Tom Brady story. It’s from Billy Oppenheimer who inspired this blog post…
After his second year at Michigan, Tom Brady wanted to transfer. He wasn’t playing in games, and he was so low on the depth chart that he only got 2 reps in practice. Brady met with his coach to express his frustration, “The other quarterbacks get all the reps.” His coach replied, “Brady, I want you to stop worrying about what all the other players on our team are doing. All you do is worry about what the starter is doing, what the second guy is doing, what everyone else is doing. You don’t worry about what you’re doing.” Coach reminded him, “You came here to be the best. If you’re going to be the best, you have to beat out the best.” And then he recommended that Brady start meeting with Greg Harden, a counselor who worked in Michigan’s athletic department. Brady went to Harden’s office and whined, “I’m never going to get my chance. They’re only giving me 2 reps.” Harden simply replied, “Just go out there and focus on doing the best you can with those 2 reps. Make them as perfect as you possibly can.” “So that’s what I did,” Brady said. “They’d put me in for those 2 reps, man, I’d sprint out there like it was Super Bowl 39. ‘Let’s go boys! Here we go! What play we got?’” “And I started to do really well with those 2 reps. Because I brought enthusiasm, I brought energy.” Soon, it went from getting 2 reps to getting 4 reps. Then from 4 to 10, “and before you knew it,” Brady said, “with this new mindset that Greg instilled in me—to focus on what you can control, to focus on what you’re getting, not what anyone else is getting, to treat every rep like it’s the Super Bowl—eventually, I became the starter.”
“Most letters from a parent contain a parent’s own lost dreams disguised as good advice. My good advice to you is to pay somebody to teach you to speak some foreign language, to meet with you two or three times a week and talk. Also: get somebody to teach you to play a musical instrument. What makes this advice especially hollow and pious is that I am not dead yet. If it were any good, I could easily take it myself.” -Kurt Vonnegut
“You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.” -C.S. Lewis
A popular podcast or interview question is “What advice would you give to your younger self?”
So, what is it?
What advice would you give to your younger self?
Or if it helps…What advice would you give to an eager young person?
Jot down everything that comes to mind. When you’re done, you might even find you have enough to give a TedX talk or teach a class or write a book.
“You wouldn’t worry so much about what others think of you if you realized how seldom they do.” -Eleanor Roosevelt
“My former colleague, the poet Michael Burkard, used to talk about “back-door ego.” This is the habit of self-abasement we all have, in which “I suck” is just another way of saying “I am vastly important.” Either attitude can prevent us from seeing the work in front of us for what it is.” -George Saunders, Story Talk
Thinking “I suck” or “I’m not worthy” isn’t humility.
“Stanislavsky once wrote that you should ‘play well or badly, but play truly.’ It is not up to you whether your performance will be brilliant-all that is under your control is your intention. It is not under your control whether your career will be brilliant-all that is under your control is your intention.
If you intend to manipulate, to show, to impress, you may experience mild suffering and pleasant triumphs. If you intend to follow the truth you feel in yourself-to follow your common sense, and force your will to serve you in the quest for discipline, and simplicity-you will subject yourself to profound despair, loneliness and constant self-doubt. And if you persevere, the Theatre, which you are learning to serve, will grace you, now and then, with the greatest exhilaration it is possible to know.” -David Mamet, Writing In Restaurants, Cabot, 1985
“To laugh is to risk appearing a fool, To weep is to risk appearing sentimental.
To reach out to another is to risk involvement, To expose feelings is to risk exposing your true self.
To place your ideas and dreams before a crowd is to risk their loss.
To love is to risk not being loved in return, To hope is to risk despair, To try is to risk to failure.
But risks must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.
The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing is nothing.
He may avoid suffering and sorrow, But he cannot learn, feel, change, grow or live.
Chained by his servitude he is a slave who has forfeited all freedom.
Only a person who risks is free.” -poem Risk by William Arthur Ward
Why do we actors do it? Why do we put ourselves out there, night after night? Why do we risk?
Because the highs…are really f-ing high, man.
When it’s working and that audience is in sync with you…there isn’t a better feeling in the world.
That’s why we do it.
P.S. – I found both the above quotes pinned to a cork board outside a high school theatre.
“And then when I walked down the street people would’ve looked and they would’ve said there goes Roy Hobbs, the best there ever was in this game” -quote from the film The Natural, based on the novel by Bernard Malamud
“Every film I do, I have to believe that I’m making the best film that’s ever been made. Films are really hard to make. They are all-consuming. So it had never occurred to me there were people doing it who weren’t trying to make the best film that ever was. Why would you otherwise? Even if it’s not going to be the best film that’s ever been made, you have to believe that it could be. You just pour yourself into it and when it affects someone that way, that is a huge thrill for me—huge thrill. I feel like I have managed to wrap them the up in it way I try to wrap myself up.” -Christoper Nolan
In your art and anything you do, why not try to make it the best thing ever.
No matter what the result, at least you were after something great. You went for it. And isn’t so much more fun to think it just might be.
That’s what the audience is hoping for when they sit down to read your book, see your play, or watch your film. That it’s the best thing ever.
An irritant, such as a grain of sand or a parasite, enters a mollusk (like an oyster or mussel) and triggers a defense mechanism where the mollusk secretes nacre (mother-of-pearl) in layers around the irritant. This layering process, which can take years, forms a pearl as a protective barrier against the foreign body.
Sometimes the only reason to do something is you can’t NOT do it. (Intentional double negative.)
The feeling irritates you. Gnaws at you. No matter how hard you try, it won’t go away.
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