If you can’t show up for meetings at least 90 percent of the time,
you shouldn’t have sought office or volunteered for an authority
seat in the first place.
You have to do the stuff. Everything in life turns out to be a
distraction from the real thing you want to do. There are a million
distractions and when I was a kid I was very disciplined. I knew
that the other kids weren’t. I was the one able to do the thing, not
because I had more talent, maybe less, but because they simply
weren’t applying themselves. As a kid I wanted to do magic tricks. I
could sit endlessly in front of mirror, practicing, practicing,
because I knew if you wanted to do the tricks you’ve got to do the
thing. I did that with the clarinet, when I was teaching, I did that
with writing. This is the most important thing in my life because I
see people striking out all the time. It’s not because they don’t
have talent, or because they don’t want to be, but because they
don’t put the work in to do it. They don’t have the discipline to do
it. This was something I learned myself. I also had a very strict
mother who was no nonsense about that stuff. She said ‘If you
don’t do it, then you aren’t going to be able to do the thing.’ It’s
as simple as that. I said this to my daughter, if you don’t practice
the guitar, when you get older you wouldn’t be able to play it. It’s
that simple. If you want to play the guitar, you put a half hour in
everyday, but you have to do it. This has been the biggest guiding
principle in my life when I was younger and it stuck. I made the
statement years ago which is often quoted that
80 percent of life is showing up.
People used to always say to me that they wanted to
write a play, they wanted to write a movie, they wanted to write a
novel, and the couple of people that did it were 80 percent of the
way to having something happen. All the other people struck out
without ever getting that pack. They couldn’t do it, that’s why they
don’t accomplish a thing, they don’t do the thing, so once you do
it, if you actually write your film script, or write your novel, you
are more than half way towards something good happening. So that I
was say my biggest life lesson that has worked. All others have
failed me.
I hate to agree with the VDT, but I do with this editorial of 8 February 2013,
The importance of ‘showing up’,
distraction from the real thing you want to do. There are a million distractions and when I was a kid I was very disciplined. I knew that the other kids weren’t. I was the one able to do the thing, not because I had more talent, maybe less, but because they simply weren’t applying themselves. As a kid I wanted to do magic tricks. I could sit endlessly in front of mirror, practicing, practicing, because I knew if you wanted to do the tricks you’ve got to do the thing. I did that with the clarinet, when I was teaching, I did that with writing. This is the most important thing in my life because I see people striking out all the time. It’s not because they don’t have talent, or because they don’t want to be, but because they don’t put the work in to do it. They don’t have the discipline to do it. This was something I learned myself. I also had a very strict mother who was no nonsense about that stuff. She said ‘If you don’t do it, then you aren’t going to be able to do the thing.’ It’s as simple as that. I said this to my daughter, if you don’t practice the guitar, when you get older you wouldn’t be able to play it. It’s that simple. If you want to play the guitar, you put a half hour in everyday, but you have to do it. This has been the biggest guiding principle in my life when I was younger and it stuck. I made the statement years ago which is often quoted that 80 percent of life is showing up. People used to always say to me that they wanted to write a play, they wanted to write a movie, they wanted to write a novel, and the couple of people that did it were 80 percent of the way to having something happen. All the other people struck out without ever getting that pack. They couldn’t do it, that’s why they don’t accomplish a thing, they don’t do the thing, so once you do it, if you actually write your film script, or write your novel, you are more than half way towards something good happening. So that I was say my biggest life lesson that has worked. All others have failed me.