Tag: inspiration

great stuff from other artists that inspires me to keep going

Digging Deep & Deep Work

Today is not about business, marketing, music, or dance alone. It is about a mindset thing that is beneficial in all of those.

We live in a world of distractions. That sounds like an exaggeration, but is a brutal truth that results in a decline of real productivity and creativity. We think we are experts in multitasking, but we are not. We are experts in being distracted, which leads to a culture of superficiality. We wear “being busy” like a badge of honor when it is only a sign of lacking priorities.

As an artist and entrepreneur that is in the game to stay (without burning out), we shall cultivate a habit to dig deep in what we do. At least for all the things that matter (the ones that align with your bigger picture).

Digging deep means:

to give ourselves the time that is needed to work things out
to look at a topic from different angles
to do additional research when we miss information instead of assuming things
to ask questions
to find the reasons behind symptoms
to take ideas far

Deep Work means:

to commit to a specific task
to immerse yourself in the work
to shut out distractions (flight-mode is a lifestyle)
to spend enough time with a topic to allow our conscious and subconscious mind to get involved

You will only do your best work when you reach depth. So avoid today’s culture of mediocrity and dig deep when you create your art and set up your business.

Tags business, dance, improve your dance, inspiration, marketing

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Balancing Inspiration

Most forms of enternainment can serve as inspiration for getting your own creative juices going. But the abundance of options and the volume of material that can be consumed might become a source of further procrastination.

If you are diving into movies, books, videogames or music for inspiration you should know that these different types of input effect you thinking in different ways.

Television or cinema (everything that is moving image) give you a very clear image of what is happening. There is very little left to imagination. You might be engaged emotionally but most of the time your brain is not really motivated to work because it is getting everything served. It is dumbing you down, especially when you apply the repeated patterns that are imprinted deep into television productions.

Video games are very similar with the difference that they require you to actively engage.

Music and reading are not as clear about the things they say and you make up a good portion of what might be happening on your own. When two people read a character description in a book, they still envision the character differently. The same goes with music. While we hear the same sound, it triggers different emotional responses in everyone of us.

There is nothing bad in turning on the tv or going to the cinema. But in order to keep your mind active I highly recommend that you grab a book or listen to music more often than you switch on tv.

Have a good night everyone.

Tags inspiration, my mind

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The Sacred Place

The Sacred Space

At the moment I am reading “die empty” from author Todd Henry. It is a book about doing your work as good and as commited as possible, so that you “empty yourself from everything you can give”. This idea of not saving anything for later cultivates an urgency to look for new stuff every day, thus challenging you to reach for stuff outside the status quo often.

The author mentions the concept of the sacred place. He advocates that everyone needs to find that place where he can do the work that he really cares about. Not the work that is urgent because it brings the food to the table, but the one that is important because it feeds the souls and follows the path that you envision for yourself. The sacred place shall be a place that is not to be used for stuff that is not important, otherwise is loses it’s inspirational impact.

As a lot of us can’t have an extra room in their flat or rent something for that purpose I suggest using the sacred place as a metaphor. Create a sacred space within your possibilities. You can always install a real one later. For a dancer this might be the practise room of his crew or a writer might have his favorite table in the cafe around the corner. Be creative as this must suite you and nobody else.

My personal “sacred place” at the moment of this writing is the 90 minutes at the end of the day from 22:30 to 00:00. My wife and my daughter are already asleep and I find the time to write. It does not matter if I write for one of my blogs, a screenplay or a poem. The thing is I have time to create without having to think about anything else.

That is the purpose of your sacred space. Whenever you are there, it is about creating. Try it. Here are the rules:

I) find a place or a time frame that gives you the possibility to disconnect from everything that might distract you from doing your creative work

II) use this to do your important work every day

III) focus only on doing the work

IV) don’t bring anything else to the sacred place

I am doing this sacred place practise for only 37 days now. But I did not miss one. It is like medidation. Helps you calming down an focusing your awareness on the things you want to accomplish. It might not be for everyone, but it works for me. And it might work for you. There is no loss in trying.

Tags inspiration, metaphor