I love eating. Not just eating. I love cooking. I’m a firm believer that it always tastes better when you make it yourself. The downside of loving to cook and eat though, is that there’s always dishes to do. When you live at home, or have a roommate, sometimes you’ll walk in and be pleasantly surprised to find somebody else doing the dishes. If you live alone, like me, this never happens. Dirty dishes perpetually occupy the sink. And if all the dishes are clean, just give it a few hours, and sure enough I’ll dirty a few more. Why? Because I love to cook and eat, and if you love to cook and eat, then you’re gonna have to do dishes.

I love running. Now before you roll your eyes at me for being a health nut, I have not always loved running. In high school, I couldn’t run lap, much less a marathon. Over the last six years though, I have slowly been converted. I may love to run, but I hate to stretch. I’d rather run twenty miles uphill than hold a hamstring stretch for twenty seconds. It’s painful and annoying. The truth is though, if I want to keep running, I have to keep stretching.

I love writing (obviously). You know what I don’t love? Editing. If I want to keep writing though, well, you get it.

Passions and talents cannot be developed if we only pursue the aspects of it that we enjoy. There is the primary work, which we usually love, and there is the secondary work. For me, lifting weights is primary work. I enjoy it. The rest between sets is secondary work. I get so impatient, feeling like I’m wasting time. But if I want to get stronger, the rest is just as important as the lifting. The same is true in everything.

You can run all you want, but if you never stretch, you won’t have a very long running career. The stretching is just as important as the running.

You can write all you want, but unless you edit you won’t find very many people who want to read you. The editing is just as important as the writing. 

Developing your art requires doing all aspects of the work, even the parts you don't enjoy. You can’t cook good food without clean dishes. The day you stop doing the dishes is the day you stop cooking.

Creative ideas are the life blood of the artist. In the past, I’ve struggle through a real love/hate relationship with my ideas. Years ago, my process for dealing with inspiration looked a little something like this:

1. The idea hits
2. IMMEDIATELY my mind tells me, “That’s dumb. That’s stupid. That’s too under-developed. It will never work.”
3. I throw the idea away
4. Three days, a month, or maybe a year later, I discover that someone has executed on the idea and found success. 
5. Smack self in head

Perhaps this sounds familiar to you. 

Creative types tend to be outwardly confident. Most of the time, this is only to hide our deep self-loathing. It’s so easy to listen to that voice in our heads telling us that every idea we have is stupid. Over the last few years though, I’ve learned to not take the easy way out. 

Now, as soon as an idea pops into my head, I write it down, no matter how crazy it seems. The artist should record every idea, especially the stupid ones. As I’ve said before, your latest bad idea is just your next great idea waiting to be developed.

The Wire, an HBO television series that aired between 2002 and 2008, tells differing stories of illegal drug trade and corrupt city government in tough, inner-city Baltimore. During the show's five season run, the show received consistently low ratings and failed to win even a single major TV award.

Today however, nearly six years after the show's "death", The Wire is more popular than ever. In 2013, both Entertainment Weekly and TV Guide placed the show on their list of top ten television series of all time. The Wire is yet another culprit in the online “binge watching” trend thanks to HBO Go. It's streaming numbers have been rivaled only by shows such as Game of Thrones.

Speaking of Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin published the first book in his epic series in August of 1996. Outside of mild popularity among high fantasy enthusiasts, the novel did not prove at all appealing to the mass market. That is, until 14 years later, in July of 2011, when the book hit #1 on the New York Times Bestseller's List.

Now, with millions of copies sold, five Bestseller's in the series, and a TV adaptation that dominates both ratings and the Twitter-sphere, Game of Thrones has made Medieval power struggles more relevant than ever.

And speaking of the medieval! At the close of the Medieval Era, far from the Seven Kingdoms, in a land known as Italy, Galileo Galilei was making breakthrough discoveries in modern science. However, at the time, discoveries like the phases of Venus, sunspots, the military compass, and the telescope were not thought of as ground breaking. They were thought of as heresy.

It was only years later, after Galileo's death in 1642, that the breakthroughs he made were finally accepted by the ruling authorities and the general public. Today, Galileo is praised as the "Father of modern physics, astronomy, and science in general."

After it's initial creation, art leaves the hands of the artist and takes on a life of it's own. This is a life that cannot be controlled, and it doesn't always pay off immediately. It can be so easy to become discouraged when our first efforts to create do not receive the rousing response we imagined. What's comforting about the stories above though is the sobering truth they represent, that good content eventually hits it's mark. 

We cannot control when or where it happens, or on what scale, or even if we'll be around to see it. The only thing we can do is continue to bravely answer the call within us telling us to create.

Stepping out in faith means stepping into the simple action, and letting God take care of the miracle.

I always make an effort to ensure that anything online bearing my signature is something that I personally wrote. This includes blog posts, tweets, emails, and even Facebook messages. I don't use any virtual assistant or auto responders. If you see it, and it's through one of my official channels, I was the one who wrote it.

What I find so interesting though, is how many people are baffled when I answer an email or Facebook message personally. It's like they expect to be ignored or sent some sort of stock response.

First of all, I'm not even close to being a big enough deal to need that sort of automation.

Second of all, where did we as a culture get this idea that online interaction should be any less personal than being in person? Most of us wouldn't ignore others, give automated responses, or have an assistant talk for us in real life. So why do we think it's okay online?

I understand that there are some actual celebrities who receive so many messages that it's simply impossible to respond to each one personally. I don't think any of those big shots read this little blog though. For 99.9% of us, making the small, simple effort of giving a personal response, both online and off, will dramatically increase the depth of commitment from our audience/community.

Because personalized online interactions are so rare, they are one of our biggest opportunities for attracting what Kevin Kelly calls, True Fans. In the last six months, I've had countless experiences where someone who simply enjoyed my work was immediately transformed into a dedicated fan, simply because they received a personal response from me.

Personalizing online interactions is a HUGE opportunity for those of us trying to build an online platform.

It isn't any sort of special formula or skill. It's just flat out effort.

It won't gain you 500,000 Twitter followers. It will gain you one true customer, fan, and friend at a time, which is worth a whole lot more in the long run.

I love books. I love blogs. I love podcasts, YouTube videos, inspiring conversations with friends, and hearing a great talk at a conference.

All of these opportunities to learn and to take in information are extremely valuable and should not be overlooked.

BUT

Nothing can replace or compare with the action of actually doing. There is a certain understanding and level of expertise that simply cannot be reached without doing, acting, or putting into practice all that we have been learning. This act, to do, will not only bring forth action in our projects, but it will actually enhance our learning process in a way that talking, reading, or listening never could. 

Do not neglect that little two letter word, “do”. It is these two letters that have often separated the artist from the bum.

Awhile back, I received an email from a woman asking if I could help her get an audition for a Broadway show. She was a very nice lady, and I’m sure a very talented performer, but my role as an actor on Broadway does not give me any influence or sway whatsoever in who gets cast. In fact, it would probably be inappropriate for me to try and meddle in casting affairs at all.

I explained this to her in my reply, and encouraged her to send a headshot and resumer to several casting offices, a direction that would undoubtably be more appropriate and profitable for her.

Later that same day, I received a reply from her in which she strongly reinitiated her previous request. “I just cannot give up on my dream that easy,” she said. I told her once again that while I admired her determination, it simply was not appropriate, or even possible, for me to do what she was asking. Our exchange continued in this way, back and forth, three or four more times before I was able to convince her that if she wanted her dream to come true, she would be better off going a different route.

I hope that in telling this story I do not paint this woman as crazy or irrational. As I said, she was very nice and probably very talented. She had a dream, and she was doing to “persist” until she achieved it. I have great respect for that.

Here is what she, and most of us, don’t realize about persistence though: Persistence does not mean continually running into a dead end, hoping it will magically transform into an open road. Persistence means that no matter how many dead ends you run into, you still search for alternative routes. 

Adapting and looking for new ways to solve the problem, that’s being resilient. 

Refusing to change course, even when the way is obviously blocked off, that’s being stubborn. 

Don’t wait for the dead end to change into something it’s not. Recognize a dead end for what it is, change course, and find alternative routes.

Last week I had the honor of visiting the summer camp I grew up going to, and have spent the last five years counseling. I was only able to stop by for one day, but seeing those students and being in that atmosphere reminded me of the power that short term relationships have to create long term influence.

I still remember when I was ten years old and my camp counselor Miss Lynn told me that my singing of America The Beautiful was so loud and patriotic that it made her cry (in a good way). I am twenty three years old now, I have not seen Miss Lynn in over ten years, and yet I still remember that exact moment. Why? Because Miss Lynn saw the potential for influence and seized the moment. She used her position of authority to encourage, and that encouragement still has a profound effect on me today.

The camp counselor is not necessarily a camp counselor. He or she could be a high school teacher, a sports coach, or a guest speaker. Regardless of occupation, the camp counselor is anyone who uses their short term relationship to make a long term impact. 

The camp counselor doesn’t look at working with kids as a temporary job, she looks at it as an opportunity. Each day is an opportunity to pour into the next generation, just as the last generation poured into her. 

The camp counselor is intentional with every single moment, because he knows that each moment is packed full with the potential to touch and drastically alter the course of a someone’s life. 

The camp counselor knows that while she may not be able to run the entire race with her students, she can certainly provide them with enough fuel to get through the tough times. 

Our lives are full of relationships where we play the role of the camp counselor. We can either view these roles as obligatory to-do list projects that will be over in a week’s time, or we can view them as an opportunity to encourage, enlighten, inspire, impact, and influence those who have been entrusted to us. Somebody needs you to be their Miss Lynn. The question is, will you see the potential for influence, and seize the moment?

There has been a silly trivia tidbit floating around the internet in recent years. No doubt you have seen a meme or two of a gigantic lobster with a caption claiming that lobsters, if left undisturbed, are biologically immortal. This claim, while untrue, is completely understandable. Lobsters do not age in the way humans and most other animals do. They don’t lower their reproductive ability, their metabolism doesn’t slow, nor do they decrease in strength. In essence, while a human being hits a certain point where we stop growing and start decaying, a lobster continues to grow until the day it dies.

While we cannot hope, at the moment, to harness the lobster’s gifts for continuous growth in a physical sense, perhaps we can learn something about our creative lives. What if we lived our lives with the mindset that our best work was always ahead of us? I think at some point, usually around the general “retirement” age, most people take a seat on the bench and vow that their work is done. It seems silly to me though, that after a lifetime of lessons and learning, that we would not use our wisest years, when our schedule is most open, to create our best work.** 

Take a lesson from the lobster. Let us view our creative lives not as an inverted U where we reach a peak in our mid-fifties and spend the rest of our lives decaying, but as a steady climb to the top of a mountain that has no peak, just better work with each step we take.

 **Yes, there are those diagnosed with degenerative diseases that attack the mind making continued growth impossible. But for the rest of us, what’s our excuse?

The United States is in the middle of it’s most recent love affair with health and fitness. Everywhere we turn there is another protein shake or fitness DVD promising to give us the quick results we desire. Very often, we quickly discover that none of them ever work the way we thought they would. Twenty years ago, the majority of Americans had tons of gym equipment in their basement that they never used. We’ve grown up a bit since then. Now we’re all a part of gyms we never go to.

Fault us if you will, but at least our country is trying. At least we’re making an intentional, conscious effort, and some folks have even seen some pretty decent results.

The same cannot be said, however, for our intellectual and spiritual diet. Americans spend very little time thinking critically about the types of films we watch, television we stream, literature we read, and websites we surf. 

I’m not saying that there is no room for “junk food”, but if I exclusively ate Hostess Cupcakes, you wouldn’t expect me to have a very healthy body. So why do we think we can watch nothing but “Keeping Up With The Kardashians” or “The People’s Court”, and still do our best intellectual and creative work?

If I human being is truly mind, body, and spirit, why are so many of us neglecting the health of two thirds of that being?

Perhaps it is time to become just as intentional in our mental and spiritual diet as we are in our physical diet.

In the early 1970s, computers were used exclusively by those who had superior knowledge of the technology, or who had deep, deep pockets.

When a quiet engineer named Steve Wozniak came onto the scene, he had something different in mind. Wozniak envisioned a personal computer, a machine that could be purchased and used by the average consumer, regardless of technological prowess or bank account size. Wozniak believed that if the computer technology were affordable and simple to use, then perhaps it would level the playing field, allowing the little man to take on big corporations, thus changing the way our world operates.

Today, nearly thirty five years later, websites like YouTube, Twitter, and Tumblr are doing just that. Programs like Garage Band and Photoshop are putting the power of creation in the hands of the little guy. Netflix and I-tunes are giving normal people the power of choice. Self publishing is making a huge dent in the book industry, entrepreneurship has never been more popular or possible, and it’s all thanks to the personal computer.

Today, nearly thirty five years later, Steve Wozniak’s company, Apple Inc, has led the way, and his dream is finally taking shape. He and his partner, Steve Jobs, were not just interested in making computers. They wanted to create a different future for the world and those of us who live in it.

Building a computer is not a dream. Building a computer is a goal. 

Writing a book a not a vision. It’s what is in the book, and what the author hopes the book will accomplish in the hearts of it’s readers that is the vision.

A product by itself can never make an impact. It is what that product frees others to do that makes a difference. 

A lot of artists and small companies say that they’re really into “dreaming big”. But when you look at a list of their “dreams”, they’re really nothing but a bunch of goals. Quality products, quality service, a huge body of work, these are goals. The dream is much, much bigger. The dream is how your project or product is going to affect the way others live in the world. 

Today, nearly thirty-five years later, Wozniak’s partner, Steve Jobs, has passed away and Woz no longer works at Apple. Both of them may have moved on, but their dream of empowering the little man is still alive and making tidal waves of influence in the world. 

The goal has a timeline, the dream is never ending.