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The Power of Never Giving Up

So what is success? Success is very relative I'm not sure I wanted to use the word success okay? I'd much rather use the words creative, innovative, enterprising and accomplished because success is different for everybody else pretty different so was accomplished but all these terms a relative but I think you get my meaning success means different things to different people. So how do you become creative? Innovative, enterprising accomplished? Well, there are a few traits that are ultimately characteristic of most innovative people. Okay? Innovative people relish new discoveries, possibilities, challenges and the belief that another fantastic adventures around the corner they truly have a positive outcome. This is one of my pieces my my competition art pieces this year. Okay, in bridge there's what? One, two, six times three there's eighteen versions. There it has almost seventy, seventy virgins of this piece. I still look at it and go, oh, camp has like, five names too, so it started ...

off with this photograph kind of went there, then there, then there we knew the hair wasn't right. I spent a month on this piece almost every day, so I knew I had to redo the harris. This is where it started and her hair was straight in the original photograph, so this is all painted from from scratch and I had to like learn how to do the highlights and shadows it was such a failure in the beginning and I could just blamed it on something else and gone I thrown trash, but instead I thought I'm not gonna let this thing beat me. I'm not gonna let this piece of art that I wanted to create so badly make me quit because I'm frustrated and I don't know how to paint here that's why I did it all in straight lines, so I opened a pinterest swiped a few files, looked at how hair lighting, how it flowed shadow and started trying and trying and trying and trying over again. And then finally the finished piece it's called a breath of heaven, and I was just informed that at one of the bronze medallion for the american society, photographers in the entire country blew me away. But if it wasn't for my tenacity, that piece would've hidden on my hard drive. Does that mean to say that every single piece I'm tenacious with? No, like I said, a lot of them will never see the light of day it's knowing when to quit, but what happened was I knew the piece was getting the better of me because my knowledge and expertise was not enough to get where I wanted it to go, so instead of giving up, I figured I gotta learn how to do hair creativity is not some magical ingredient of personality granted to the chosen few creativity is an attitude that we hold towards the choices we make in life. There is always a better way of doing things, and creative people are out there looking for it. Substitute the word success accomplished, innovative entrepreneurs, anything you want for the word creativity, and it holds true innovation is not a magical ingredient of personality, granted to the chosen few entrepreneurship it's about you making that choice to do it, and always being curious about the next adventure, looking for something new and different that sparks you remember elizabeth gilbert's ideas hears what happened? She had this idea to write a book about the amazon construction of this highway because they were the true story they were trying to build this highway like inspired her, and she was going to write a story about kind like a murder mystery love story about the amazon how this woman, who was in love with her boss in minnesota was sent down to the amazon to find out what happened to the son who wanted to put all this money into the highway is like a murder mystery kind of really fictional story random okay, her in an meet at a conference totally starstruck and patch is a very famous author for those of you who don't know her walk up to her, teo teo is amazing, you know, like starstruck, you know, that kind of a bubble bubble, personal space and and in all of her beautiful, traditional respect, politeness, suddenly I've been looking forward to meeting you, too, and they hugged in exchange to kiss about six months later, they were having coffee and they were taught they were writing letters back and forth. I think what it was, they write letters, and they had talked she had talked about an idea that she had when the next time they met up, they wanted to share ideas so live and said the list, you tell me your idea first, and then I'll tell you, we're talking about book ideas and so list starts talking about the story, the amazon and she had left this idea for two years in a box because her house, her boyfriend at the time got shipped out of the country and in order to get him in the country, she had to marry me all this stuff. So she kind of put it on hold for two years. When she came back to it, the idea was gone like it it hadn't she couldn't get back like she tried to write the book, and she couldn't do it. And of course, his process she met and you know, at this convention and then six months later, however long was they were they were sitting there and she was telling about this idea and how was gone and she does what the f and says, if that's my idea, an idea was exactly like listen, characters were different wasn't about the highway was about something else and ended up writing the book, and it became a best seller. Now lives could have been all p o about that you stole my ideas yada yada yada the two of them truly believed that when they met and kissed that night, that the idea left liz and went to him because liz did not nurture it, she ignored it and it decided to go play with someone else. And I love that story because I'm like that is so have you ever seen someone who did a piece of art? You're like, oh my god, I totally had that idea like a year ago why did I do it? The ideal left you and went to someone else who would play with it? Who would be inspired by it? So when you have your ideas, you don't have to do them all you can pick what's important but just know that it might go to somebody else success means having passion now sometimes it's not fair to say the word passion because passion some people have passion for what they do and some people haven't found their passion yet, right? Sometimes it's really hard to find what you're passionate about but it's important to stay curious, so think of passionate morris curiosity. If you're interested in astronomy, go start like looking through a telescope and studying the stars you never know where it'll take you right? It may take you to some other idea about gases and more structure that you may end up loving I don't know just throwing ideas off the top of my head no pun intended you get my point if you stay curious and experimental it's going to lead you down the direction again elizabeth gilbert same thing she was curious about gardening her mother was a gardener her whole life and she I didn't have any interest in it when she was young within all of a sudden later lifes like I wanna learn about gardening, so she started a garden she didn't do vegetable sheet of flowers who loves showy flowers and then she started reading the history on her flowers what she had in her garden something was from turkish tulips and japanese forsythia and all this kind of thing that she that she was studying about and learning about she became obsessed with the history of flowers and botanic and that just turned into her last best selling book called the signature of all things, which I just finished reading it's fantastic and you can see her passion for botanical history in the book so and it all came about because she decided to have to do a little garden box in her in her backyard because she happened to be just curious about guarding. You never know where your curiosity will lead you that includes in your work are you curious about doing new more babies? Try it. Are you curious about photographing seniors? Try it that may lead to a different way of photographing seniors, so success means keeping your passion alive and being job knows determined about it perseverance let me tell you a little story about perseverance out of college I was a complete miserable failure to point five g p a university of california santa barbara a degree in biology, barely one last class to finish history general history course. So I took it a santa barbara city college. Well, while I'm there, I might as well take a target class in journalism class, right? Lost I stand school parents pay for it, right? Uh lease he okay, so I get involved journalism. I just you know what I think I wanted this is my passion, my curiosity about journalism a photography led to a passion and I went, I'm going to start applying to graduate school for journalism. I wanted to be a photograph photographer photojournalist I got bitten by that writers bug and by the broadcasting bug and I went how maybe I could go to broadcast journalism school, so I took the jerry ten forty oh, ouch! Score that. Okay, I stunk two point five g p a with a ten. Forty dearie no graduate school in the country is going to accept me. I knew it, and I have made this decision after I graduated, so it wasn't like I was working towards in college. I was making up for a bad party history in college. Okay, so I knew that if I was going to grad school, I had better go to these universities and meet with the dean to talk to him because I had a gut feeling that if I could get the interview, I could get a job. So I flew to new york to syracuse university's dean of of new house school public communications, one of the top journalism schools in the country at the time, u s news and world of court reports had named it the number one girl in school in the country cocky little may course I couldn't get in, so I'm thank god the dean can with me and, um hey met with me in the morning was like nine thirty ten good morning about a half hour meeting and if you have to remember I'm a biology major so my essay was written like a technical science document not a journalist so it's sucked I knew it he sat across me the death he's like well, you know your grades your test scores there really aren't what we accept here at syracuse owners say we only have seventy five spots and we have about I think over fifteen hundred applicants for this for this year's graduating class I'm like okay, I go well you mind if I just sit out here for a little bit and you know he's like why you need to that well I'm just gonna stay out here until you until you let me in palsy I can't believe I did that then how days but you know, I was twenty four young and owns the world in my hand, right? So I sat outside his office all day in and out in an hour you can you're still here? Yeah still here lunch in and out finally five o'clock he closes the office door locks because you're still here, huh like yeah I'll be here tomorrow to until you let me in so and um he just looked at me he goes, just go home because you go home you write me the letter of your life and maybe I'll consider it and I went okay, so I went to other universities the next day we'd flight out and I went to universities in the area and kept a travel journal really poured my heart out on the page and it's a little crappy travel journal in my hand running if you guys have any of seeing my handwriting, it sucks and so being the lazy perfectionist that I am, I just went ahead and ripped out the pages of the journal and I stuffed it in an envelope with a cover letter to him when I got home, I took a lot of care on the cover letter like I really made sure that I I said why I deserve to get it I sent it fedex the next day he called me and said welcome to syracuse he said your acceptance letter will be in the mail tomorrow overnight, I forget screamed my bloody murder head off and later about three months later when I got into the university and went to new york, he sat me down because you know why I accepted you don't know because of my crappy hand ready he goes, perseverance, perseverance it was is what makes a good journalist and that's not something that's made it is born in a journalist and I don't believe him on that statement but it was really cool to hear I believe parents can be learned but to him the fact that I was willing to sit there until I got the job I told him that I would do anything to get the story reporter I would do anything to get the interview and get the story and that to him was like ok, we can teach her everything else and graduating three point nine tp amy and my roommate where the top of the class and everybody hated us because we got jobs first it was totally an awesome like ending to the story my point is person that taught me to never give up combine that with ten years in television news where everybody hated you when they wanted to talk because you were always talking about something controversial or awful you know some mothers kid died in car actually got to go to the front door and ask her how she's feeling I mean that sucks but you had to do it you have to do uncomfortable things that you didn't want to do you had to cold call you had to get somebody to talk to you because there was a minute a half hole black hole sitting there at five o'clock on the news and if you didn't feel that you were fired so that tenacity and perseverance was ingrained in me and beat but it's what god was giving me and the universe was cultivating in me to make me a successful entrepreneur don't ever give up there is always a window open there was always a door with a crack in it it may be an alternate route and a long way to get around there but it will be open there is always something unlocked try every door and if they're all locked there's a different path it may get you to a slightly different place it could be an even better route to something better right? Having a positive attitude and practicing this is so valuable to your entrepreneurship to your success to your innovation you have to practice doing this you have to practise your art if you're only pulling your camera out once in a while or just for clients you're not gonna get better you must practice your art no so you must have patience it will come but if your perp if your perseverance you're practicing you know you're progressing somewhere you know you're getting better have the patience to know that it's coming be patient with yourself give your perm out self permission to screw up because you will I know that every screw up out there grows you further and faster I almost welcome failure now I almost welcome mistakes like ok, this sucks, but man, we're gonna get further didn't work so well, but well, I know what to do now it's like almost like failure gives you this revelation like it gives you like this okay that's what we're supposed to do versus trying to like muddle through it does that make sense? I know I'm talking in vague generalities here but ah positive attitude guys will get you everywhere if you start to let negative thoughts drown you you will swim in muck and it's hard to get out of the muck but it is your choice to step out of it is your choice to be positive and successful people are very positive they're always looking for new opportunity there always hopeful but not delusional okay keep things in perspective perspective is so important you have to calculate risk don't just go willy nilly spending a bunch of money hoping it's going to make you money do it with perspective and calculated risk it's one thing to gamble recklessly it's another thing to gamble with strategy god forbid you become a lazy perfectionist okay perfection is it's simply george it's simply fear disguising itself is virtue people who go into job interviews and say oh perfectionism is one of my greatest love you know really it's perfection is what stops people from beginning innovative work you're such a perfectionist that you don't even start because you don't think you'll get a good result you have to learn how to be deeply disciplined the song of the discipline half half remember what elizabeth gilbert said dunn is better than good right? It is it's so much better dunn is better than good. Finally, pluck. Be brave. This takes courage, being creative, being an entrepreneur, it takes a lot of courage, and sometimes you just have to barrel through the tough times and fears going right along there with you, because how can you be courageous if there is no fear with no courage? Creativity dies, right the universe, berry strange, jules, a deep within all of us, and then stands back to see if we can find them. The hunt to uncover those jewels. That's, creative living, the courage to go on the hunt in the first place, that's what separates a mundane existence from an enchanted one. How true is that? The universe will give you what you ask of it.