If my idea of a fun on a Friday night is to sip a latte, drink a beer, and write then maybe, just maybe, I can do something with this writing thing. I’ve been a freewheeling man living on the wing it plan for awhile now. It’s served me well and I can’t complain but an inner desire to live up to my full creative potential has been bugging me like a thorn in the big toe. I am haunted by the dude within who keeps saying, “Hey man, when are you going to do something creative?” I respond internally, yeah, yeah, I need to do something creative and proceed to dive head first into a left brain meat and potatoes way of thinking.
Last weekend I picked up an audio book copy of Joel Osteen’s, “Best Life Now”, for one dollar at a garage sale. The same price as a lottery ticket. I like Joel. He’s a motivational speaker disguised as a Pastor, and/or, a motivational speaker with a Christian perspective. It's perfect for me because I’m a Christian who isn’t too crazy about religion. Anyway, I popped his CD into my car player and let me tell you, he’s a hypnotist. Yes Sir, and a good one at it. “Before you can change, you’ve got to change your way of thinking”. “You are your thoughts” etc. etc. All of this is in a perfect hypnotic slow voice with a soft gentle Texas accent. I had to pull over for a minute to read the package. I did not see a warning label about listening while driving so I continued on. “What you believe………….” Etc… Man, Joel could sell and Eskimo snow and what he is selling is good stuff.
What you think is what you become. Yes, So true. Thoughts can direct and influence our lives incredibly. I remember watching Sylvester Stallone being interviewed about the movie Rocky. He was turned down approximately fifty times before he was given a chance and the rest is history. J.K Rowling, the writer of all of the Harry Potter books, was passed over numerous times and now she’s the richest person in Scotland. When Steve Jobs presented the idea of a personal computer to IBM their response was, “Who needs a personal computer!” Stallone's reason why so many people don’t make it in creative fields is that it’s so hard on the ego. No matter how good you are at what you do everyone is going to have an opinion and not all opinions are going to be good. When a person first starts to put their creative work on display it’s incredibly easy to get discouraged and easy to fall back and think, “I just don’t have it”. While living in Aspen I frequently dealt with creative types at the top of their game. I noticed several things about them. They all seemed to possess some type of certainty in their thinking and a lack of self doubt. Those who harbored any self doubt surrounded themselves with people who consistently reassured them. Most operated in an atmosphere of endless possibility enhanced by an, “I can do better mentality”.
I guess you can say Joel Osteen is prophet of the, “You can do better attitude”, prefaced with a little help from the powers that be. Anyway, I must follow this lead and not let it fade under the influences brought on by the Demons of Self Doubt.
No comments:
Post a Comment