Something Right

Tags

bad decisions, Benjamin Franklin, decision making, freelancing, husband, Mike Vial, time change, WMU, writing

Bad decisions seem to travel in packs. Staying up too late to read. Turning off the alarm and sleeping in. Starting work late. Not responding to emails promptly. Ugh. I’m blaming it on the time change. So at least I can trace the inciting bad decision back to Benjamin Franklin. Thanks, Benji.

Eventually the cycle will stop and my ratio of poor decisions to logical ones will start tipping in the right direction. I think. I hope. But here’s something to think about until then:

I did this right. Maybe I can do some other things right pretty soon.

During the guest lecture Mike and I recently gave at Western Michigan University, I skipped out for a minute to use the bathroom while Mike was speaking. He was giving the students an overview of his cover gigs, and I could hear him play a bit of Drake’s song, “Hold On, We’re Going Home” from the hallway.

As I walked back in he was saying, “You might have noticed I changed the last line of the chorus from ‘I know exactly who you could be’ because, I mean, come on, Drake. Who are you to tell a woman who she should be?”

So I did that right. I married that guy. I can probably manage to replicate that kind of decision making this week. (There’s 1.5 more days to this week left. I can do it.)

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Getting to Be the Anti-Naysayer

Tags

career decisions, career path, creative careers, inspiration, musician, self-employment, WMU, writing

For the second time in the last year, Mike and I had the opportunity to do a tag team guest lecture at Western Michigan University on entrepreneurship in the arts today. It’s such a fun thing to do, as we often get so consumed with the day-to-day drone of our jobs that we forget, until we say it out loud to other people, that we are living pretty super cool lives.

Both times we’ve gone in prepared to give students a glimpse of the daily grind that goes into making a living in a creative career, and both times, I’ve been so surprised by the reactions of the students, which are, overwhelmingly, variations on how we inspired them to follow their dreams. Oh. Okay.

I totally stole this picture from a student who posted it to FB. (Thanks, student!) Anyway, this is us, doing this thing.

The first time, I figured this was a mix of politeness and the students having the general impression that this was how they were supposed to respond, and thusly, they did. But today, Mike told an anecdote about a former student of his who was talked out her dream career – IN HIGH SCHOOL – by another teacher who pointed at her grades and deemed it impossible. He then asked the WMU students if they were wavering between a major they wanted to follow and one people were telling them they should, and the response was….ugh. It made my heart sink. So many of them raised their hands. One wanted to be a photographer. Another a marine biologist. Another a fine artist. And none of them were going to do those things, because they didn’t think they could.

As someone (at age 32) who still operates on the (possibly dwindling) assumption that I can, at any moment, switch to whatever career I want, this was horrifying to hear. Who are all of these people running around telling people to not chase their dreams? That is like, Disney villain bullshit. It really impressed upon me just how true those reactions from students were. If you’ve been told you can’t do what you want with your life, seeing evidence to the contrary would be very powerful.

So that’s what I’ve done today. I’ve had the privilege of pointing at my life and saying, “This is possible! It’s messy, but doable” to a bunch of young adults on the verge of making their first round of big life decisions. I feel so lucky to have had the chance to do so, and even luckier that I get to have a life like this in the first place. Because, you know, sometimes the messy gets in the way of the awesome. It was a much needed reminder.

Hey! Look at what we do! How connecting with humans makes everything better.

Tags

audience, connecting with people, connections, creative careers, public speaking, self-employment, Twitter, Western Michigan University, WMU, writing

Mike and I had an incredibly fun experience on Monday, visiting Mike’s alma mater, Western Michigan University, to give a presentation to a class about entrepreneurship in the arts. The class of about 200 students were so delightful and engaged, and asked a number of really great questions.

Look at us, getting Twitter questions like rock stars.

One of the coolest things about it, was that they all asked their questions on Twitter, with the hashtag #DEARTSWMU, and they were placed up on a screen for us to answer. I felt like Anderson Cooper, which is to say I felt like the coolest person ever. Of course we only made it through a few, so all the way home, and for the remainder of the evening, we were tweeting back answers about our creative careers, how we make them work, Mike’s music and my book.

It was such a refreshing thing for us, to be out in the world, talking to people about what we do. Normally, we’re cloistered in our house, writing, emailing, posting, sharing, etc., just hoping people are seeing and enjoying what we do. On a day-to-day basis, this can get tedious and the excitement of crafting stories and songs can wear thin. It was so fun to talk to people who were fascinated by what we do and inspired to build their own careers around their passions. And thanks to the technology we rely on so much for our daily work, we were able to keep the conversation going after we left. It made us feel more inspired to keep doing what we do, and to remember to be thankful that we’re able to do it.

My husband, being the amazing teacher he is.

It’s easy to get bogged down with the day-to-day of typing and tasking and viewing the worlds through a digital lens. Getting out and connecting with people can help unstick our boots from from the bog, and remind us why we keep hiking on. Because we do as artists – whether we’re writers or songwriters or designers – is all about our audience in the end. It’s helpful, as well as refreshing, to connect with them as we trudge along.