Selling is effective communication. Whether or not you like it, you need to effectively communicate your work. Never assume that self-belief alone is enough. You have to believe in your work and above all else, prove the belief.

Time doesn’t stop, it doesn’t get stuck, it doesn’t rewind. As a finite being taking our momentary place on the transfinite road, we’re against the clock to ensure our work surpasses the finite.

The equation states:

Happiness = Reality – expectations.

What does that mean? It means we either lower our expectations or we improve our response to reality. Rather than accept the ‘Happiness Theorem’ as true, why don’t we try and accept that things beyond expectations are still within our control?

Maybe we should look at the equation as:

Happiness – expectations = Reality

Start and end with positivity by always outweighing the negative.

I have met ‘entrepreneurs’ who never referred to themselves as entrepreneurs but were more successful and entrepreneurial than those that gave themselves the title. I have met artists who possess more creativity and original ability than those that call themselves artists. I have met successful people who live on the poverty line. I have met and worked with below mediocre ‘folks’ who still manage to earn more than 90% of what the average household in the United States earns.

At the end of the day, the happiest and most successful individuals are the ones that ignore the ‘title’. They build for a purpose and not for comparison. They ignore taking credit and would rather give credit where it was due.

Real artists find purpose and meaning in the world and do so in a way to allows others to feel connected to a purpose. The purpose is larger than any title.

People don’t leave their jobs, they leave their managers. Artists who grow disillusioned leave the ‘scene’, not their work.

Our work is best served through intrinsic motivation, not by way of industry or scene acceptance. If our beliefs are authentic, we’ll survive.

Stay committed, stay in the game.

I have always admired the superpower like senses that artists possess and exhibit when coming into contact with a new environment. They either feel safe, inspired or physically ill. Safe when it is a place and collective of people who allow the work to speak. Inspired if the work sparks creation and change among others. Physically ill if the people are louder than their work.

Is what you’re doing, as a work activity right this instant, glamorous? I find coal mining glamorous, even though I have never met a clean coal miner in my entire life. Work is exactly that, work. But working for what? Results. Those are different. They are the final end, ready for consumption, products/services that demonstrate effortless ingenuity and work. You would never look at a diamond and think, ‘wow that must have been an awfully painful and disgusting procurement process.’

Creating art is not glamorous. It is HARD work. But you’re not in it for the glamour. You’re in it for yourself.

“The Laughing Heart

your life is your life
don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission.
be on the watch.
there are ways out.
there is a light somewhere.
it may not be much light but
it beats the darkness.
be on the watch.
the gods will offer you chances.
know them.
take them.
you can’t beat death but
you can beat death in life, sometimes.
and the more often you learn to do it,
the more light there will be.
your life is your life.
know it while you have it.
you are marvelous
the gods wait to delight
in you.”

– Charles Bukowski

Immediate connections that last for years can be severed in an equally immediate fashion. Never assume anything in perpetuity. Being an artistic navigator requires a balance of vulnerability and self-protection. Stay guarded but stay accessible. Find a healthy medium on the vulnerability self-protection continuum and your work will remain uncompromised.

One who is necessary for stability and one who is devoted to change are two very different people. Allow others to run the factory, produce mediocre work, and keep all environmental systems fully functional. Your job is to create change, not to maintain.