Random Stuff - Chapter 320

Chuck Close’s father died when he was eleven-years-old. As a teenager, he was told not to even think about going to college. He had several learning disabilities and couldn’t even add or subtract. His teachers told him trade school would be his only hope since he was pretty good with his hands. But he also suffered from a neuromuscular disorder that limited his mobility, so even that was iffy.

Today, Chuck Close is an internationally-renowned painter and graphic artist whose work hangs on some of the most famous walls in the world.

That would be amazing enough on its own, given his early life hardsh.i.p.s, but what’s even more remarkable is that Close continued to produce world-class artwork after a blood clot left him paralyzed in his late 40s.

How the hell does he do it?

Well, he once said, in a note to his younger self, “Inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us just show up and get to work. Every great idea I’ve ever had grew out of work itself.”

Most people approach work and motivation in the completely opposite way: they wait to be inspired, then they get to work. The problem is that inspiration is a fickle beast. Some people will wait around forever for inspiration to just fall out of the sky or something. Others spend all their time and energy looking for ways to motivate themselves so they can finally get to work. And the irony of that sentence is completely lost on them.

I’ve sometimes experienced this myself when people, who are not writers, come up to me all excited, telling me that I have to meet their friend’s mother, because she has this incredible book idea.

So?

I’ve got millions of book ideas. People who don’t create for a living think that the ideas are the hard part. No, ideas are easy. Everyone has ideas. But few people can execute on the ideas. Few people can deal with the possibility that their ideas might be bad. So their ideas stay ideas.

Successful people don’t sit around and wait for their muse to come and inspire them to change the world. They just show up and get to work.

So, do something.