Jim Rohn — Discipline

We all have dreams and most of us never act on our dreams.  We find excuses and reasons why we can't do something.  We focus on all the obstacles we see in front of us.  Dreams may inspire us to act for a day or two, but it takes discipline to keep writing and painting.  And this goes for successful writers and painters as well as beginners.  



I have read stories of successful writers and painters who stop working.  The first book or two made them a celebrity and they never finish the next book.  They get caught up in the celebrity of being a writer.  Being a creative leader requires discipline to sit down at the computer, to stand at that easel, or to sit at the piano.  

Do you have the discipline to accomplish your dreams?  Do you rise before everyone in your family so that you can spend an hour or two working on your art?  Or do you stay up after everyone else has gone to bed?  Do you do what many others only dream about?  



Creative leaders can become easily sidetracked by the next creative thought or the next creative idea. We are attracted to the energy within new creative ideas. It is a emotional high and can be addictive. If we are not careful we will jump from one idea to the next and never finish what we have started. Creative leaders must master the art of self-discipline if they are to be successful.

Are you struggling with your dreams or have you mastered the art of self-discipline? Do you procrastinate and never finish what you start or do you bring your projects in on time? Do you let the pleasure of the moment keep you from doing the work you were meant to do? Do you let the joy of new ideas get in the way of completing your work? Remember self-discipline is the key to your success.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Advice

As creative leaders, we all receive advice — some good, some bad, and some dangerous.  Be careful of who you listen to.  The wrong advice can be damaging to your emotional and mental health as well as your creative output.  Good advice can keep you on track and motivated to keep producing creative work.  Dangerous advice is that which keeps us from fulfilling our potential.  We give up because some expert says we will never amount to anything.  

As creative leaders, we are also tempted to give advice.  Be careful.  The wrong advice can destroy a potential artist or writer.  I learned a valuable technique from a trainer many years ago.  He said if you are coaching someone on skill development, you should ask them two questions:  What did you do right?  and What will you do differently next time.

Most people know when they made a mistake or messed up, even if they don't consciously admit it.  And when they write or paint something, they are very critical of themselves.  So get them to focus on what they did right?  Have them focus on the good things.  Then ask them what they will do differently the next time they write a story or paint a picture?  Get the person to focus on how he can improve.  

Jack London — Inspiration

What inspires you? What motivates you to create? What moves your spirit? I often find my inspiration in nature. Maybe a lone tree in a field. Or a full moon rising slowly above the horizon? Maybe it is a butterfly fluttering about the yard on a warm afternoon. Or a snow-covered cornfield with the stalks popping through.

If you wait for inspiration, you may never find it. You must seek it out. You must chase it through the fields. Maybe it is buried beneath a rock. Or hiding in a bird's nest. Or lost in a raindrop.

Sometimes inspiration sneaks upon you when you are working and catches you by surprise. Sometimes it invades your dreams and you wake up with the answer to your problems. When you pretend that inspiration is not important, it will dominate your soul.

Consider inspiration as a friend who comes and goes at all hours of the day and night bearing gifts that will delight you. When you open the gifts offered by inspiration, be not frightened by what you find. Cherish the madness that inspiration bestows upon you. Taste the sadness when it leaves you naked and exposed to the elements.

Kneel before the altar of inspiration and pray that you will survive the dangerous journey. Catch fireflies and offer them as a sacrifice to the gods of inspiration. Dance with the goddess of inspiration and steal her beauty. Offer a prayer of thanksgiving for an opportunity to taste of the nectar of the gods.

Muhammad Ali — Growth

Life is about change and growth as individuals and as writers and artists.  If we think the same thoughts at 50 that we did at 20, we have failed to grow and mature in our thinking. We have wasted our time here on this earth.  If we paint the same paintings or write the same stories at 50 that we did at 20, we have failed to grow and develop our skills. We have wasted the precious gifts we have been given.



I am much more accepting of life today than I was when I was 2o.  I now take the long view and realize the world will go on long after I have left this world behind.  When I was eighteen, I thought the world was about to end.



How have you changed?  What have you learned? What did you learn yesterday?  What do you still need to learn?  Have you stopped growing?  Are you simply existing — waiting for the end to come?



In the summer of 1966, I saw Muhammad Ali standing on a street corner in downtown Chicago.  He was 24 years old and I was seventeen.  He was already a world champion boxer and I was a teenager from a small farming community just beginning to engage with the world. He had already refused to be inducted into the armed forces and was stripped of his title.  My first protest march was two years away.



More than 30 years after I saw Muhammad Ali, I met one of his daughters at the restaurant she owned in a suburb of Chicago.  I was there to give a speech on the privilege of service. Life had come full circle.



Life is about the people who cross our paths, the relationships that we choose to develop and the memories we acquire.  Life is about growth, learning and change.  Thank you, Muhammad Ali, for what you gave the world of yourself and what you taught us. 

Beverly Pepper — Fallow Fields

Farmers understand that they have to leave the fields fallow some years. The soil needs a rest and an opportunity to rebuild itself. If they planted corn every year, they would deplete the soil of its nutrients eventually. 

Artists, writers and creative leaders are going to have good days and bad days. The bad days are a way of restoring the creative energies to our spirit — of making us whole again. Work every day but understand that some days you will be producing weeds and other days you will harvest the corn.

Edwin Hubbell Chapin - Forgiveness

As creative leaders we often face rejection. People ignore our paintings. Editors reject our writing. Critics criticize our work. How we respond to this rejection is a indicator of our character. 

When I was in sixth grade I was asked to be the reporter for our class news in the local newspaper. The criticism I received was that I needed to tone my writing down because it was too much like advertising. I was so deeply hurt that it was years before I picked up a pen and began to write again. But those articles foreshadowed a later career in marketing and advertising where I did actually write ads.

I have been reading the biographies and memoirs of Presidents for several years now.  Even these great leaders had a hard time overcoming criticism and forgiving their critics.  Both Harry S. Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower felt slighted by the other.  Richard M. Nixon felt slighted by JFK and LBJ and even Eisenhower on occasion.  Nixon's failure to forgive his enemies and his critics led in part to his down fall and resignation.

How do you handle criticism? How do you respond to rejection? Many years ago I submitted two haiku to two different magazines accidentally. The reason I found out is that they both were returned on the same day. The first letter I opened was a rejection slip and it hurt. When I opened the second envelope, I found the haiku was accepted for publication. I learned a valuable lesson that day. There will always be rejection, but there will also be acceptance. Don't focus on the rejection; focus on the acceptance. Editors are fickle and rejection often has nothing to do with you. It has to do with the editor's editorial needs and his personal taste.

Maybe it is time to take a look at your life.  Who do you need to forgive?  What criticisms and rejections are holding you back from success?  What pain and injury must you forget?  What we spend our time thinking about is who we become.  Are you so busy reliving the slights and rejections of the past that you fail to enjoy the present?  Life is too short to dwell on what we can't change. Forgive and move on.

Andre Gide - Truth

Great novelists understand that truth is neither black nor white.  The best characters are filled with shades of gray.  Black and white characters are boring and leave little to the imagination or the heart.  As readers, we connect most with the characters who are conflicted and whose behavior is neither purely evil nor purely good.   The best stories communicate the nuances of the human soul.  



When it comes to the interactions of human beings nothing is black and white. You can always find some gray. Every person has some good in him as well as some bad.  For me, very little truth is black and white. Most truth, if not all, has various shades of gray. No human being has a monopoly on truth. We all make mistakes. 


Yet, many people choose to see the world as black and white.  They quickly choose sides and set up barriers which give rise to conflict.  Sometimes writers and artists fall into the trap of seeing the world as black and white: "Only our style of art is good. Everything else is bad." For much of the 20th century artists moved away from realism and adopted cubism, abstract expressionism, surrealism and magical realism. Realism became a negative word. In writing, we have literary novels and the genre novels. Mysteries, science fiction, fantasy and romance novels are considered by literary snobs not to be as good as the literary novels.

I grew up in a church where congregations would split up over such simple things as whether men should wear clothes with buttons or the fish and hook. The fights between the groups of people occur because each group believes they have cornered the market on truth. They probably agree on 95% of the issues, but they allow the five percent to divide them. They don't see the gray because they are blinded by the black and white.

Who in your life are you separated from because you each think you own the truth? A story does not just have one or two sides. It has thousands of sides. Nothing is black and white. Everything is gray. Break down those black and white walls today and gather those you love in your arms.