I seemingly do a lot. I seemingly have done a lot. A friend in college, who did not succeed at that the things—-writing and getting published, as I have (and had lots of issues of jealousy and envy that I didn’t understand then) said that to watch me was to see someone declare in one scene that I was going to do something, and then like in a movie, I had accomplished it, in the next scene.
I have held onto that description from him, even though he didn’t do the things he wanted and sort of ended up in a nowhere job that doesn’t bring him contentment or joy——because at the time I valued his opinions and thoughts and insights. He suggested there were some friends I had to rid myself of, which I have, he just didn’t say or know, that he was one of them====which I did as well.
What I can tell you of why I think of it as seemingly rather than a rocking cheering Yes! is because I write at 10 million words a year, and publish quite a bit of them, maybe 60–75%—-in blogs, books, school curricula, etc.. I can only tell you that I do it because I have done it and therefore I continue to do it. I’ve been writing for well over 30 years because I enjoy writing, putting down my thoughts, creating stories and ideas, editing, organizing words into proposals and presentations and recording my life in journals.
Doing that day by day, week by week, has lead to my doing it for decades—-no matter where—-school, cars, work, trains, jail, planes, by terminal bedsides, the night after my mother died, when I’ve been alone or sad, after sex, when I’ve been despondent. I keep writing.
Now the motivation to publish—-display one’s work, share it, even get paid for it, took time and had to be designed. By designed I mean, I had a small amateur comic book company as a teen that was nationwide. That was my first legal foray into publishing and the membership fees went towards supplies and computers and such. Before that I would scan comic book pictures and scenes and copy roleplaying books or commission artists for pictures, to sell in middle school cafeterias. In high school, I joined all of the chapbooks and magazines, the same in college and my mentors there Carlene Hatcher Polite and Raymond Federman pushed me and referred me and my work to publishers and great teacher/publishers like Ronald Sukenick. That pushed me to simply submitting all over the world and often getting published (and paid!), paid first in Buffalo and then from places/publishers around the world. The design that structures and fuels motivation and then resultingly shines as ability, skill, product—-is from trying things out, doing things, testing things. Most people talk themselves out of trying new things. I instead always look at—-okay, what would I have to do, pay learn, study to do that thing? I don’t believe my own doubts. More people believe in their doubts than themselves. I believe in myself.
I took a break, I now see, to play and learn, in corporate America, to hone my business skills and then another great influence/mentor Stephen Brookfield at Columbia, suggested I convert all of my teaching notes into books, while tending my terminal mother. (Terminal people don’t die fast——it’s a long, long, long drawn out process, that he had been through too.) So I had a lot of time to type and handwrite in her room, in hospital cafeterias, in the big empty house.
First, listening to and seeking the counsel of others, and then discerning which ones are more valuable in the advice they give. With that, I couple time to slow down to listen to people—-wise people move slowly and parse out info at lightspeed.
Then, secondly, being aware and deciding how to control your time. Control what you do when you do. what you focus on. what you don’t.
Then I was on to the next level of publishing. I’d decided a long time ago, with lots of help from Oprah Winfrey, that I would own my work. Which I do. Books, videos, TV show—-I was just running through another corporate reformation legal law state deciding thing, calculating costs, etc..
You must have some sort of vision for the shoes you’re going to buy. What color shoelaces? So that when you slip the shoes on, it’s how you envisioned. Most people show up in life and get what is available, not understanding that custom made is nearby, accessible, for them.
Then in that publishing of my work, I slowly started making more and more, of not just a financial profit, but getting feedback from an audience—-which lead into videos on YouTube and a TV show and blogs and articles, and now you can just type my name in and find a solid decade of work and dozens of books.
I am motivated by death. Most high achievers are. Whatever our spiritual beliefs, we know that this lifetime is to accomplish something, to do something, and that means less talking about doing it and more actually doing it. Because I know, of all the things I know for sure, that I will die.
I know how much time I approximately have left in life and I intend to squeeze out as much creativity as I can so that I can simply dodder around at some elderly point. (I probably won’t.) But I do see my work, my Phoenix, as Voltaire had his named daemon, as needing to be exercised and exorcised, out of me——all these dreams and ideas and books and articles and blogs and so on.
I am motivated, as I think everyone eventually is, by the mountain of stuff, the tsunami of work behind me, and my interest in deepening it, deepening my understandings, my interests, my expansive expression. When one climbs a second mountain, you realize, you’ve climbed the first one. Therefore, the third can’t be that much tougher. The climbing itself teaches you to climb mountains. When people look at the breadth of my work and think it’s a lot, I instead think: “Oh, that’s mountain # 8, #11 will be the real challenge!”
Most people avoid mountains and therefore have just tiny hills that don’t test them, brace them, exercise and stretch them and in results, don’t mean to them what a mountain would.
When tired or questioning, I look back at stuff, accomplishments, projects—-and I go: ”Oh, that’s right, I climb mountains!”
I also do a lot of backward design planning. I have notebooks where I write out how many videos, books, blogs, TV show episodes I have now under contract and what contracts I can commit to in the future and what platforms I can put work on. That helps immeasurably because then I’m sort of locked in.
I think it is important to distinguish before, having no financial incentive, the slow integration of a financial incentive, and the present mix of the two—-to actually generating a targeted profit. I think people assume financial profit is the goal or the measure of success to outcomes or even the motivator.
It’s not.
Now that doesn’t mean it can’t be, but it’s not. Generally people like me, and I’ve made a study of them to get my own inspiration and push and fuel—-(I’ll interrupt here in that I am VICIOUS with the company I keep, with the thoughts I allow to sit in my head or my company—-I was doing something, made an error the other day and in my head called myself stupid—-and it was like I slapped myself—-I stopped myself so quickly—-and then I looked at that actions and realized how much I don’t degrade myself, I don’t insult myself, I don’t self-criticize harshly.)—-recognize money, of course, but it is often a byproduct of the work itself. Not the sole goal. I want to climb mountain # 9——now, if an audience, customers, etc. are willing to pay me for what I wanted to do, was going to do, enjoy doing——so be it.
I keep motivators in my listening—Marianne Williamson, Tony Robbins, lots of folks; I sometimes play audiobooks—-mainly Toni Morrison’s books in the house, like music, on low for 20, 30 hours, as literary whisperings/hauntings in my space. Imagine it: stopping for a moment in the bathroom, or while cooking, or waking up, and Toni Morrison is whispering one of her books to you? That’s how I live.
I don’t watch TV. Many of you miss the REAL conspiracies—-TV is one of the biggest ones.
You are not what you want to be in life due to TV.
Unless you want to be in the TV industry/entertainment. And even then, you have to learn to discern mass audience, quality and high quality, in a learning fashion.
#KylePhoenix
#TheKylePhoenixShow
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