Day 195: Nuggets not to be ignored!

Posted by

Day 195:  Nuggets not to be ignored!

Day 195.  Ignore Everybody!  It’s not my suggestion it’s Hugh MacLeod’s who wrote the book, Ignore Everybody, and 39 Other Keys to Creativity.  I bought the book on title alone.  How could I resist?  I finished reading it over a year and a half ago.  How do I know?  Well, I know because of my trusty handwritten note on the inside cover!  It reads, “12-27-10 – Some great nuggets!!  🙂  —Kelli Joan Bennett.”

It’s on my mind because I had dinner with a wonderfully talented actor friend on Monday and the book came up.  My Talented Actor Friend has a rather big, impressive day job in the lawyer world.  In general he has the best of both worlds—financial security and time to create—and is incredibly thankful for his good fortune.  But he sometimes struggles with finding the balance between his artist and his legal, moneymaking eagle.  His resistance to his day job at dinner made me think of the book.  Hugh talks about how thankful he was back in the day to have his day job while he created his art on the side—for over a decade.  Very inspiring.

Some great nuggets!

I open up the book to a page I’ve dog-eared.  It reads, “The size of the endeavor doesn’t matter as much as how meaningful it becomes to you.”  There it is again—meaning!  What matters?  What is meaningful?  We all have to answer these questions over and over again because what matters to us—what’s meaningful to us—dictates our actions.  I have a saying, “Motivation is oxygen to creating.”  But I realize I must back up one step further.  Where does motivation come from?  Motivation is born out of meaning!  When something means something to us then we are motivated to take action—to create.  Meaning is oxygen to motivation.  Motivation is oxygen to creating.  Creating is oxygen to life.  Meaning.  Motivation.  Creation.  Talk about a fantastic trinity!  What a wonderful new nugget of wisdom this random sequence of events has brought me tonight.

At our next lunch, I plan to bring the book to Talented Actor Friend.  Before then, I’ll be reading it again to see what other nuggets I find!

Until tomorrow, create from what you have…nuggets.

Kelli Joan Bennett is a filmmaker, actress, writer, entrepreneur, advocate for creative thinking and Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Think Outside The Box Inside The Box Media.

6 Comments

  1. This is brilliant, Kelli, and so spot on! It really speaks to me, particularly now when I’m in the height of meaning, motivation, creation. I love that! Twill be my new mantra. And, my word of the day is OXYGEN! It feeds everything!

    • Wow. That’s so wonderful, Cindy! You just gave me a major hit of oxygen. Thank you so much for sharing.

  2. Love it. 🙂

  3. And you. 🙂

Leave a Reply to Kelli Joan Bennett Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *