Abbey went with her mother to a big wedding expo last year. I stayed home. She walked around and looked at dresses and sampled cake from vendors. After wandering around the isles for around an hour, she found a seat to listen to the featured speakers.
The keynote speaker was an event planner, probably the most sought after event planner in San Francisco. He had planned events for SF MOMA, the San Francisco Symphony, major corporations, and the most expensive and elaborate private parties. Abbey knew him by name though she had never seen him. When Abbey relayed this to me, I immediately assumed he was born with a silver spoon, very comfortable around the wealthy given his own upper-class upbringing. But my assumptions about this man were all wrong.
In fact, he had grown up in rural New Mexico, in a working-class family that had trouble making ends meet. His father was a craft maker, possibly clocks, but I forget what exactly he made. This elite event planner talked about his childhood in New Mexico and his fascination with his father. He would sit in the basement studio and watch carefully as his father meticilously put together his crafts. He was amazed by his father's attention to detail. His father was not a wealthy man, by any means. But he put his passion into the details of his craft, knowing he would not be compensated in relation to the effort he gave.
The successful event planner, speaking at the wedding expo, talked about what he learned from his father. Mainly two things: his father's attention to detail and the love of the craft that was created.
As this young event planner started his career, first moving away from rural New Mexico to San Francisco, he never forgot his roots and passion for details. He also developed his own mantra: trust your instincts, deeply. Abbey relayed how when this event planner would meet with people planning an event, his first thought was colors. After discussing the event for a short time, the colors for the event would become clear to him. This was a visceral, instinctual reaction, choosing the colors after a short conversation. But this successful event planner learned to trust, immediately, the colors he had chosen for the event. He felt deeply that the first colors to come into his mind would be the correct colors for the event.
Abbey shared this story with me months ago, and it has had a pretty profound impact on me. Hearing this event planner's story about his father, the attention to detail and the colors has made me realize just how vital it is to trust your instincts.
For me this plays out mainly in my creative pursuits though it can certainly apply to business or any other human endeavor. For example, if I play a chord progression on the guitar and it sounds good, I've learned to lock it in. I trust my instincts. I feel it in my gut. I'm ready to defend this chord progression to my death. Well, not really, but I feel committed to it. I feel like I'm willing to face negative criticism.
I have also learned to trust my instincts when it comes to writing. If I feel it deeply and immediately, it usually means I go with it. I have no idea where the idea for naming my last show, "The Show!", came from. But once it popped into my head and my reaction was positive, I stuck with it. We had The Show! on Thursday, June 14th, and it went great. I don't know how much of a role the title played, but I feel good knowing I stuck to my instincts.
When my sister or other friends ask me about art, writing, or creativity generally, one of the first things I say is trust your instincts. If you feel it, go with it, stick to it, even if it may eventually lead to negative criticism.
For me, I feel it in my stomach, literally in my gut. The muscles in and around my stomach tighten, as if readying for battle. I am in tune with my body, and my body is telling me to stick to my guns. Even if it is just a glimmer of an idea, an irrational idea, at the very least, write it down.
When I say trust your instinct in this context, I'm talking about creative impulses. I'm talking about the first instinctual reaction to creative impulses. I'm not talking about trusting your gut all the time. For example, if you gut is telling you to end your life, don't do it. Seek help. Go to the hospital.
I'm not talking about all gut level responses. I'm talking about that fleeting, ever-so-vulnerable, first moment when you feel, instantaneously, that you have a good idea for a creative project or something to add to a creative project. I'm encouraging you with my whole soul to go after it like a wolf after meat. At the very least protect it, don't let it get stomped on by your own negative thoughts, negative thoughts that aren't fast enough to pummel the creative instinct before it is born. That creative instinct arrived, it is alive. Of course, your negative thinking will attempt to crush it, but over time you can develop strength and protect the impulse.
This doesn't mean that I tune out feedback. Quite the contrary. Feedback from other people is hugely important, and I am a firm believer in flexibility. It's fine to change and adapt. But make sure you lock in that first creative instinct. And (this part is HUGE) don't be afraid to follow it to its conclusion. Be smart, weigh the possible consequences, be aware of what might happen if you do follow your creative passions to their logical conclusions. But don't let all of this post-first-instinct mind chatter steer you away from your gut level response. TRUST IT, DEEPLY.
from the wild hollows of creative singe (following your instincts will sometimes hurt), with love for mothers and widows and wives-to-be and all artists everywhere regardless of where you fall on the gender spectrum,
Anthony
ps - I think Malcolm Gladwell may have written a book about this. But I haven't read it.
pps - here's a great song by The Donkeys:
"Excelsior Lady"
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