The ultimate skill of the truly creative person is their ability to survive change no matter how varied it may be.
Acquiring and then expertly utilizing already structured knowledge is the attribute of the very learned.
The creative person is uniquely interested in newness.
That, coupled with a passion for what they do, fires a gut-drive infused with persistence that sustains a vision that never changes.
It’s different than a dream.
It makes the timeline from start to finish, even if it’s very long (and it often is), seem more bearable.
Even when it looks like failure is following failure yet again this drive wins out because it won’t let them give up easily.
Another word for a creative person like that is “entrepreneur”.
In the 1920’s, and for many years after, Napoleon Hill interviewed one hundred and twenty-five of the most financially successful men of his day.
Know what he discovered? The top two attributes for their success was their persistence and determination. Not intelligence or connections. Too bad Hill himself never nailed down exactly what the nature of persistence and determination was and how to get more of it into your life. He instead got wrapped up in laws and lists of principals. More head brain work for you to do.
All that is a far cry from finally finding out what exactly it is that allows some to survive long periods of discomfort and to maintain a motivation through it all. For creatives who want to ‘make it’ on their own terms it’s as essential as air.
Persistence is one of those things that each culture on earth has it’s own word for. Here in North America we have at least three words for it. Determination, perseverance, and dogedness.
Doesn’t matter though which ones you use the meaning stays pretty much the same. “Trying to do something and never quitting till the thing is done successfully” is the meaning that works for me.
In other words: Persistence means success.
Should be the same for you too. No matter where you live.
More power to you.
PS: Would you like to learn about a new way to discover what you are really meant to do? What is true and natural for you instead of taking direction from others? Check out my free Mobius Effect Webinar.
I subscribe to a design blog and they send me updates like a lot of blogs do. The latest one contained a quote someone sent in from broadcaster Ira Glass. Ira won the much coveted Edward R. Murrow Award in 2009. He’s a very accomplished writer and radio personality. Been doing it since he was just nineteen years old.
Know what he said about his beginnings in radio? He said that he took the longest time to reach a level of mastery in doing interviews and stories on radio then anyone he knows. He says that getting through the beginning time can take years of working through the frustration with your own crappy output. It tries to be good but it’s just not. He says that’s where most loose it. They quit because they are convinced that they will never ever see success.
I know what he’s talking about.
I’ve just had another birthday blow by and I’m still trying to refine my message about mindset immunity and the fact that I have the tool that can allow anyone, in 24 hours or less, to see and feel the huge ocean of potential that exists within them. And when they use this tool they can create amazing levels of self-belief.
When attempting to do something new it becomes a creative work no matter what field you work in. There is a lot of failure to contend with.
In another email I got this week Ishita Gupta was interviewing Steven Pressfield on his new book “Do The Work“. In it Pressfield related a story about Picasso:
“There’s a famous story of Picasso after he had finished about 24 paintings for his next show. He invited his agent or his manager to his studio to look at the paintings and as Picasso was looking at them with his manager, he started to hate them. He grabbed a painting knife and started slashing the paintings. The manager absolutely freaked out and said, “NO, NO, NO!” but Picasso kept slashing until they were all ruined. Then he went back to the drawing board.”
That’s the kind of craziness that happens with our own self-assessment. It’s punishing to be a creative or a leader of any kind.
If I was going to quit I should have done it 20 years ago. But I didn’t and now I can’t. There is just too much at stake. Too many lives to help make better, richer, more fulfilling.
Besides, it worked for Ira so it’ll work for me.
It’ll work for you too. Hang in there.
More power to you.
PS; Let me know what you think about the challenge of trying to put together something brand new. Leave me your thoughts in the comment area below. If you’d like to get alerted on new blog posts you can subscribe by clicking here.
Famous Quotivations # 9 – Jan 28 , 2011 [display_podcast]
“I couldn’t wait for success so I went ahead without it.” –Jonathan Winters
Do you have a wait problem?
Know what I’ve noticed over the years?
A lot of us have wait problems.
No, I’m not talking about the heavy kind of weight. To be sure, obesity is certainly reaching critical mass here in Canada and in the US, but what I’m talking about is a problem that has gripped almost all of us no matter what the size label says.
The wait problem I’m talking about is metered by the pendulum not the tape measure and it’s probably more virulent than you would think. In fact the number one reason for highway deaths each year is speeding in an attempt to beat the clock.
So, why are we going so fast? We can’t wait to get to where we’re going.
See the wait problem?
We can’t stand to wait for anything so we surround ourselves with things that deliver quickly. Microwave ovens, email, rapid transit, TV and internet with high-speed cable, and, of course, pizza.
Clearly, we hate waiting. We want stuff and we want it now.
Instant gratification has become the new normal. Too bad our immune system, the one that looks after our thinking not the one that takes care of our body, hasn’t kept up to this speed increase. It’s been a mindset immunity massacre.
As a result all the old methods of personal development, the ones that were authored way back in the 30’s and 40’s, don’t work near as well as they once did They we’re never designed to overcome such a high level of uncertainty.
One of the most devastating effects of this bias for all things instant is when it comes to success. When a new entrepreneur doesn’t see their dream unfolding quick enough it tends to kill their motivation to carry on. They loose the ability to muster enough passion and persistence to keep running the business efficiently and learn from their mistakes over the long haul.
The problem with success is that the timeline to it can be long and arduous. Take for example the prolific mystery author Steven King. He wrote every day for nine years before he sold his first novel. Marie Curie spent seven years living in poverty in Paris while studding and researching radio activity. Michael Faraday worked as a lab assistant for seven years before he was even allowed to do his own experiments. And finally, Walt Disney was fired from the Kansas City Star newspaper in 1919 because, his editor said, he “lacked imagination and had no good ideas.” Thirty-six years later on July 18, 1955 Disneyland opened to the public and approximately 50,000 guests attended the Monday opening day.
Studies show that, on average, fifty percent of all start-ups fail during the all-important first five years of being in business. Same for relationships (What’s that? You refuse to make me happy every single day? I’m outta here!)
Sure, you shouldn’t have to wait for success to happen but don’t quit trying new things to make it happen. Consistently working every day toward the end goal is key to getting through the dreaded timeline and the learning curve on the road to success.
It could well be that success in anything is always going to be further than you think. But what if the reward of knowing that you could do it on your own is worth the wait?
It’s Friday. Consider your self quotivated.
PS: Is this about you? Do you have a wait problem? Is success running away from you? Maybe you should check out my new book “The Gut Brain Balm – How to get more of the success and happiness you deserve by learning to love the ugliest brain your world has never known.”
“Failure is only the opportunity to begin again, only this time more wisely.”
-Henry Ford
Famous Friday Quotivations #7for December 31, 2010.
Every Friday I choose quotes that I think are motivating or inspiring.
Well well… here we are the last day of 2010.
The quote above from Henry Ford speaks about renewal. That’s why I choose it for today.
The failure quotient this year for me was high and that’s a good sign.
That simply means that in 2011 I will be that much closer to being worthy to drink from the golden cup of success.
I have endured therefore I am.
The evil of the enduring and continual learning curve has not claimed this here guy.
Won’t either.
I must keep going towards my goal of creating the best way of telling the story of how anyone can become “immune to failure” and beat the odds of becoming a worthless statistic on the road to success. I predict that I will do it in 2011. (Watch for my new DVD: Immune To Failure Essentials in the new year.) In fact just yesterday I made this point clear to copywriter and fellow blogger John Breese.
Is your time-line too long?
In reality it isn’t the curve of learning that does us in. The death of our ambitions is dashed on the rocky shoals of time. I’m not trying to be poetic here so let me explain a bit more.
We are all a bit impatient these days. This, after all, is the age of the microwaved five minute dinner, instant-on TV sets, video games that so easily let us start again even though we’ve been fatally cut down in a hail of laser bullets, and communications that…oh, don’t get me started.
Because of that need to feel impatient we are not at all accustomed to waiting it out by working it through. As a result we fail to see the vision of the future already completed as we would have it completed in our dreams. [I have always maintained that there is a difference between a dream and a vision but that is another issue.]
In other words… time itself will finish a lot of us off long before we are eligible to find ourselves waking up on the wrong side of the grass. Ambitions die with a silent whimper. After that we just go out and get our old job back (yuk!).
Not me though. Not now and not ever. Once this project is done I have a few others in my bucket to complete before the sky is darkened.
For now though I’ll continue on. Tomorrow is New Years day. You’ll find me here – same place same station – pounding this damn keyboard just as I have on any other day during the last 30-odd months straight.
Like Henry I want to start over tomorrow more intelligently than I did the day before when my head hit the pillow. I can only do that by going through a certain set of failures.
So tonight I will raise my glass and bless all the mistakes that have gone by the boards. Tomorrow is a new year and another day to start again.
I hope all of you who have ambitions will join me in turning them into a profitable future starting tomorrow.
Much success to you and to yours in the coming year.
PS: Looking for more balance and happiness in your life? Connect with me on my FaceBook page
