Personal mastery

As artists, we must learn to be self-nourishing. We must become alert enough to consciously replenish our creative resources as we draw on them—to restock the trout pond, so to speak. I call this process filling the well.

Just ‘going with the flow’ drains the purpose from your work and life, makes personal and professional relationships seem tenuous and uncertain, and almost guarantees that you’ll fail to live with intention. All this means you may not accomplish things you’d really like to accomplish.

“Let’s see how von Karajan’s 1975 recording of the second movement of the Seventh Symphony differs from his 1963 recording,” or “I wonder if the brass section of the Chicago Symphony is really better than the Berlin brasses?” Having set such goals, a listener becomes an active experience that provides constant feedback (e.g., “von Karajan has

Research shows that the best way to deal with negativity is to observe it, without reaction and without judgment. Then consciously label each negative feeling and replace it with positive, compassionate, and solution-based thoughts.

Vocabulary gets in the way sometimes. Design is not just a profession. A customer is not only a person who buys something. A product is not just a physical object or software that you sell.