Practice Makes Perfect
Winners AND losers practice 10,000 hours.
Taking a Break
“Give me a break.” In the vernacular, ‘give me a break’ means “Oh, come on.” On the other hand, taking a break has no second meaning. Does that mean it’s more serious? Taking a break is so important that it is mandated by law to protect employees from being forced to work without eating or […]
Borrow
We borrow our identities when we give in to outside approval. It’s a counter-force to innovation if we listen to the inner voice that says, “What if they don’t like it?” It squelches the courage to ship. We don’t need approval at the creative stage. In fact, we don’t need it at all unless we […]
Different
The eighth grade boy was the only one in the classical dance show last night. It was an arts school, yes, but he was alone on the stage. How would he spend his day at a normal school? How does he make this decision every day —to be different, so different? Because something in his […]
Simplicity
We need simplicity to create. We need: offloading, clarity, sparseness, clean lines. Make it a focused, spare, and clutter-free mental environment. We require an absence of interruptions, those nasty bug bites that send our creative muse to dance at another party. We’d like to think other people stop the flow. No. In our heart of hearts, we KNOW that interruptions are […]
To achieve
To achieve great things, two things are needed: A plan and not quite enough time. ~ Leonard Bernstein I heard this Bernstein quote yesterday, but it didn’t sink in until the subconscious pulled it up to conscious. It’s plain awesome that this great American composer, conductor, author, music lecturer and pianist knew the value of […]