At the beginning of December I embarked on a rather ambitious project — to learn and absorb as much as I can from folks that I admire, and of course it just had to be something that I had to do in my journal.
If you’ve been following along for the past couple of months, you might know that I am on a journey to bring change and transformation into my life. At that point, I had hit a wall, and I was feeling stuck and stagnant. To figure out a way forward, I had been gone down a bit of a rabbit hole with a bunch of podcasts, talks, speeches, and videos. I quickly discovered people that I hadn’t heard of before, and I became a fan of those who resonated with me.
But I began to realize that all of these folks — creative folks, entrepreneurs, business folks, and more — were all throwing out gem after gem of advice, motivation, and inspiration. And all for free! I had listened to so many different people that I knew that I couldn’t remember it all, and there was so much good stuff that I wanted to hold onto. So I decided that I needed to go back and listen to my favorites again, but this time I decided to take notes. I’m terrible at remembering anything if I don’t write it down, and creating a two-page spread in my journal really allows it to sink in as I spend time working on the pages highlighting words, emboldening phrases, adding color, and so much more. But I didn’t want to do it just for myself, and I made the decision that I wanted to share these. I devised a bit of a process and begun. Though many of these are podcast episodes and interviews, I wanted to broaden it a bit, so I looked at some of my favorite speeches and talks that I’ve watched over the years, and I dove in.
I’ve been sharing them on social media over the past month and a half, but I wanted to share a bit deeper here on the blog. I’m beginning at the beginning with the very first spread that I created about Neil Gaiman and his 2012 commencement speech.
This speech, dubbed “Make Good Art” was given at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, and the YouTube videos have racked up more than a million views. In it, Gaiman shares the things that he wished he had known when he was starting out, as well as the one piece of advice that he failed to follow. It’s a great a speech, and if you have 20 minutes, I strongly encourage you to listen to it. Even if you’ve heard it before, I encourage you to listen to it.
One of the biggest take aways that I got from it, besides, “Make Good Art,” is the idea of looking at this journey as making your way to a mountain. If you want to be a writer, an artist, an entrepreneur, whatever, think of it as a mountain in the distance, and ask yourself a simple question. Am I moving TOWARDS or AWAY FROM the mountain? Is what you’re doing now, taking you towards the mountain, or is it moving you away from it?
It’s a sentiment that I’ve heard again and again from others, and photographer and creative entrepreneur Chase Jarvis sums it up with the idea that there is no map to your future. You just have a compass that points you in the right direction.
Are you heading in the right direction? Are you moving toward the mountain?
Check out Neil Gaiman’s speech HERE!