The Successful Dilettante
August 5, 2006 Issue 3
Editor: Susan Henderson, coach@susanhenderson.com
Visit our website at: http://www.susanhenderson.com
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Greetings!
A very warm welcome to both old and new subscribers. Thank you for sharing my ezine with your colleagues and friends. We are a growing community here. I appreciate you so much! Past issues of this ezine are archived on my website on the Newsletter page. I am continually adding new content and resources to my site including a bookstore. I invite you to stop by occasionally and see if there is anything interesting and helpful to you. Suggestions are sincerely appreciated.
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Since we are not in this world to go it alone, one of the most important questions I ask people in the interviews for this ezine is about their Mentors. Who has had a big impact, or influence, in support of where they are today? Very few of us with our multitude of interests had family members or employers who recognized, nurtured or rewarded that burning desire in us to do everything. You
may have had a parent, like I did, who told you that you could do anything, but it was understood that you needed to settle on one thing!
I tried that for awhile. I was crazy for travel and geography so enrolled in a travel school and became a travel agent which led me to the higher pay and travel benefits as an airline employee for ten years as a passenger service agent and trainer until they closed their doors. Although I constantly had entrepreneurial dreams, I had trouble committing to just one and so took so-so jobs while I planned, dreamed and read many, many books.
It was through all my reading that I discovered my first major mentor, Barbara Sher, who wrote the pivotal book for me - Wishcraft: How to Get What You Really Want. She does not personally know me, but she has mentored and influenced me since that book came out in 1979 and through all her books since. They all showed up exactly when I needed them.
Her latest book, Refuse to Choose, A Revolutionary Program for Doing Everything That You Love is an amazing affirmation and recognition of those of us she calls Scanners. She has a very active forum on her website where she often posts offering challenges and support to her readers. This is the first time many people have recognized themselves and learned to accept that being a Scanner is a joyful blessing, not a curse. That’s my mentor.
Go to http://www.barbarasher.com to learn more about her books, workshops and Scanner retreats.
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Featured Guest: Gail Johnson
My featured guest today is a former coaching client who I met while participating in Eric Maisel’s Creativity Coach Training program a few years ago. We have kept in touch and though we have yet to meet face to face, I consider her a dear friend. She has also kindly contributed a testimonial on my website where you can read about how she came to realize her dream of taking her love of watercolor painting from hobby to vocation. This interview shows how Gail and her husband, John,
have combined their multiple interests and talents to create a life they love.
Q: How did you come to live the life you enjoy today?
The path to my current life was certainly not direct. I have always had varied interests— mostly science, art, music, but almost anything except sports was fair game. When I was in high school and college, this seemed more like a lack of direction and when my high school math teacher encouraged me and used his influence with his alma mater to help me, it seemed like math was the place to be. Unfortunately, I did math like an artist and not an engineer so I eventually hit a cultural barrier in grad school. My math degree still was good enough to get me into high tech and aerospace, so that's where I worked for a long time.
When my husband and I were both laid off from our jobs, we saw it as an opportunity to get a fresh start. Over a period of years, I had found my job in high tech less and less satisfying. Testing software left me wondering what I had accomplished and what I had to show for the effort. Training people was better because I could say that I made a difference and made the students' work lives easier. But I really wanted to produce something I could touch.
After my job went away, I went back to grad school to study instructional design. But it was the watercolor class I went to on Saturday mornings that was my true love. It was the first time I had actually been taught to paint and I was delighted to find that I could do it. It was like coming home.
After the intensity of working in Silicon Valley, we discovered a talent for idleness. We were willing to work, but neither of us wanted to go back to the 50-60 hour weeks, being on-call, and the lack of control over hours and working conditions. Luckily, I met Susan Henderson about this time and with her coaching support, I came up with a plan to commit to an art career for a limited time—in effect I was trying it on for size. Having grown tired of the congestion and pollution of the Bay Area, we left California for northern Idaho because it is a cheaper place to live and we are close to a lot of great landscapes that inspire me to paint.
Q: How do you balance your multiple interests into a meaningful career?
There are two keys for us. First, we wanted to build on our technical skills, especially my husband's deep knowledge of the internet. Second, we realized that we could focus on art and artists.
We found that we could work with several interests that were interrelated and supported each other. I paint watercolors. And we started a company that provides web site design and support for small businesses, artists, and artisans. Also, we are starting to make Giclee prints of my paintings with the hope of doing prints for other local artists. I would like to teach painting sometime in the future. Because John likes technical work, he hopes to start teaching part time--for fun and profit. And we have enough land so we can grow some lavender as a change of pace.
Q: So how do you manage your day? Do you make a plan?
Rather than juggling conflicting activities, there is just an ebb and flow as a project in one area or another takes precedence. When it's time to plant new lavender, that gets priority. When there is a web site to do, that becomes the most important area. When we were preparing for the art fair, everything else got the bare minimum of time.
All those years of math and high tech paid off. In math classes, I developed the habit of doing assignments every day and I still tend to start projects early and work at a steady rate. In my high tech jobs, I learned some formal project management techniques that I apply now in a much more informal way. I learned to respect the methodical, organized side of my personality and let it come out in the areas where it is appropriate. A friend and I refer to it as the left brain in service to the right brain. By being organized and methodical about some parts of my work, I build a foundation for the creative, free-form parts.
I'm lucky because both painting and web design are pretty flexible. Our clients have small websites and after the initial work is done, the work becomes rather sporadic--changes are generally small and not urgent. When a client calls with a problem that falls in my area, I can usually take care of it immediately without much impact on my painting time. I try to paint every day, but sometimes I spend only a token amount of time to maintain my routine.
To get through the day, I try to stay in a routine. I let the routine handle the day to day activities and don't waste time and energy deciding when to paint, when to weed lavender, when to work on other projects. It's a great way to avoid procrastination. My routine evolves constantly because I'm better at making schedules than staying on them, but it works because my routines are based
more on principals than on details.
Q: Do you have any mentors?
I haven't had mentors, exactly, but there have been people who encouraged me or influenced me. I was very lucky in having a first watercolor teacher who was a self-taught and very capable teacher. Marta was aware of what she was doing and why. As a result she could explain it to us and look at what we were doing and explain what we needed to change. More important was her generous
spirit that lead her to encourage each student to pursue their own style and interests. She never expected us to do it her way.
My husband has been a big help over the last few years. He just assumed that I could have a successful career in art long before I had the confidence to make a commitment. He has stayed out in front, encouraging me ever since. It was his idea to do the Giclee printing.
I have a good friend whose life has paralleled mine to a surprising degree. We met when we worked together in a high tech company. We have both abandoned that world as being just "not me". Knowing someone else who is going through the same process is a big help. Since she is someone I like and respect, it's even better.
Q: Any tips, advice or encouragement?
Cultivate a generous spirit. Perhaps it just keeps us from dwelling on our problems and tripping over our worries. Or maybe it just makes us more pleasant and then people are more interested in getting involved with us.
Follow your heart. Commit. You won't go as far doing something you hate. And you won't succeed if you don't put out a wholehearted effort.
On a practical note, creative people often seem to actively avoid being organized, probably as a result of the fear that they cannot be organized or the fear that being methodical will stifle their creativity. Planning isn't a dirty word. Planning actually saves time and stress and frees you to be more effective when you are doing the creative work.
To contact Gail Johnson, please visit her websites for her art studio and web design business. http://www.singingcolors-studio.com and http://www.panhandletechnology.com
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© 2006 Susan Henderson, All rights reserved.
