Why Artists Don’t Wait…
Some professionals spend their whole lives waiting to feel alive.
Waiting…
For the next client approval.
For the next prospect win.
For the next revenue milestone.
For the next exam score or ‘Best-Of’ award.
And, honestly…
I still drift towards those temptations.
Or I did.
Until that afternoon…
In an ancient square in Javea, Spain.
I realised something that shook me.
Made my throat ache.
I’d escaped routine.
Flown to a five-day Writers Retreat in Javea.
On the penultimate day… six of us taken to Javea’s central square.
Let loose for two hours by Jo, our editor.
“Make us gasp with what your senses capture!” she said.
And we did.
That evening, the sharing of our creations brought emotions beyond gasps.
I struggled to remember when I had felt this outlandishly, deliriously joyful.
When I’d felt this pain in my chest, exploding with words I couldn’t frame.
Perhaps holding my newborn grandson in February.
Returning to England… and coaching people like you.
I pondered this question…
- “Is the joy in our work merely the fleeting dopamine hit we get when hitting a metric-driven goal?
Or…
- Does the work itself – the crafting, wrestling, frustrations, failures, overcoming – cause emotion to catch in our throat… as we consider the wonder of it?”
Because I see you smiling right now.
Perhaps with the hint of a sneer forming.
“Yeah, right!”
I hear you… all the way from your screen… to my Coaching ShedQuarters in East Grinstead, West Sussex.
Yet…
Most artists wake into a world… where their passion flows from their creation.
Not the comparison with peers.
It’s the work that’s the wonder.
Not the graph on the screen.
It’s the shaping of lives.
Not the tidying of purses.
Ponder that for just a moment longer…
Does the work that you do… in the moment you do it…
take your breath away?
Make your heart explode with delight…
Your soul soar with wonder…
Your mind reel with the joy of it all.
Or are you waiting?
Waiting… for the applause.
Waiting… for another client to validate your worth.
Waiting… for your peers to call you successful.
Waiting… for the graph to rise, for you to finally exhale.
Here’s why these questions are so foundational…
It’s one thing to write your Vision Document… packed with 10-year, 5-year, 12-month goals…
And then start meeting some of those in the months ahead.
You’ll feel good about that.
Until 30 seconds later the buzz wears off.
And you’re on the treadmill again.
Chasing metrics, targets, goals.
Again.
Years from now…
long after the spreadsheets are forgotten….
Some people will still be spoken about softly. Reverently.
But the masters of their craft…
Those who will shape the magnetic attraction of a profession…
They won’t be those who acquired the most.
They’ll be the ones who generated a legacy beyond finance.
And they’ll do it…
Because what they do today… sets them alight.
And others come alive when they are near them.
For them…
The wonder is in the work itself.
It’s in the magic of their craft.
Serving another human being.
By shaping something that matters.
Imagine…
A team alive with the possibility of that magic… on a Monday morning.
