20 Lessons from 2020

Embracing the unknown was difficult. And checking in with myself to examine my actual feelings, instead of ignoring them, was no easy task. I mean…it sucked. Like, a lot. And beyond those two roadblocks, what next?

Through the ideas I’m sharing below, I was able to push through crummy obstacles, create a new framework for my future, and embrace nebulous next steps. The results have exceeded my wildest expectations.

Here are some nuggets that helped me this year—I share them in the author’s words, with emphasis my own. I hope you find them as useful as I did.

1. Our ability to make the most out of uncertainty is what creates the most potential value. We should be fueled not by a desire for a quick catharsis but by intrigue. Where certainty ends, progress begins.
   —Ozan Varol, How to Think Like a Rocket Scientist
2. If we never learn to take something apart, test our assumptions about it, and reconstruct it, we end up bound by what other people tell us—trapped in the way things have always been done. When the environment changes, we just continue as if things were the same, making costly mistakes along the way.
   —Rhiannon Beaubien and Shane Parrish, The Great Mental Models, Volume I
3. Knowing what emotions tell us is the first, necessary part of the process. For example, anxiety is a signal that we feel something important is beyond our control. Fear or uneasiness can make us risk-averse.
   —Marc Brackett, Permission to Feel
4. Being with the way things are calls for an expansion of ourselves. We start from what is, not from what should be; we encompass contradictions, painful feelings, fears, and imaginings, and—without fleeing, blaming, or attempting correction — learn to soar, like the far-seeing hawk, over the whole landscape. The practice of being with the way things are allows us to alight in a place of openness, where “the truth” readies us for the next step, and the sky opens.
   —Benjamin Zander and Rosamund Stone Zander, The Art of Possibility

On Practice & Improving

The thing about developing a practice is that it’s just as easy to do it as it is not to do it. At first, the outcomes are the same whether you practiced or not. But if you continue on, investing time into growing your skills… you will amaze yourself with the differences you’ll see. Growth is painfully incremental. Unfortunately, so is decline.

5. Our commitment to the process is the only alternative to the lottery-mindset of hoping for the good luck of getting picked by the universe.
   —Seth Godin, The Practice
6. To do anything artistically you have to acquire technique, but you create through your technique and not with it. Faithfulness to the moment and to the present circumstance entails continuous surrender.
   —Stephen Nachmanovitch, Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art

***NERD ALERT***

If you know me, you’ve heard me rave about journaling and keeping track of progress and discoveries. Having a journal and using it towards a purpose-driven day is great. Having a second journal reserved just for your work as an artist is a game-changer. I’ll let the experts take it from here…

7. On the importance of a journal — When I discover the secret to the successful execution of a particularly elusive movement (circus people use the word trick—I can’t), I write in bold “Secret = ” and explain to myself in writing—for posterity—what triggered the victory.
   —Philippe Petit, Creativity, A Perfect Crime
8. Keeping a journal of your own performance is the easiest and most private way to give self-feedback. Journals allow you to step out of your automatic thinking and ask yourself: What went wrong? How could I do better? Monitoring your own performance allows you to see patterns that you simply couldn’t see before. This type of analysis is painful for the ego, which is also why it helps build a circle of competence. You can’t improve if you don’t know what you’re doing wrong.
   —Rhiannon Beaubien and Shane Parrish, The Great Mental Models, Volume I
9. When ego and not competence drives what we undertake, we have blind spots.
   —Rhiannon Beaubien and Shane Parrish, The Great Mental Models, Volume I
10. Generally the solution is not “try harder” but rather “try differently.”
    —Ben Rosenfeld, Peak
11. In this journey, it is the path that will transform me, not the arrival.”
    —Philippe Petit, Creativity: The Perfect Crime

On Craft, Creativity and Careers

Each week, I work with 75 actors. Their dedication to their craft inspires me to keep growing in my own work. I find that because they’re so good, it forces me to continue to try and get better. (Thanks, team.)

12. Whenever we make a decision or face a challenge, we have an opportunity to be creative—to respond to the moment in a way that doesn’t just repeat what’s always been done before (and perhaps always failed before too). Daily, each of us has many chances to be creative, to act in new and thoughtful ways. It’s what makes life an adventure.
    —Marc Brackett, Permission to Feel
13. The actor must never lose the sense of himself in the part. He himself, the actor, must do the doing. Later, if there is a fusion of the actor and the part that results in a new character, well and good.
    —Elia Kazan, Kazan on Directing
14. So everything seems so random but, when you look back, you can see how things connect. You mentioned that this is a book about how to get your work produced. The thing is, it is all about getting your work seen. It’s very hard to control a career. All you can do is put your work out there and see what comes from it.
    —John Guare, in Fine I’ll Talk to You…
15. But what-ever the mode of storytelling, well-imagined characters always have theories about the minds of other characters and – because this is drama – those theories will often be wrong. This wrongness will lead to unexpected consequences and yet more drama. The influential post-war director Alexander Mackendrick writes, ‘I start by asking: What does A think B is thinking about A? It sounds complicated (and it is) but this is the very essence of giving some density to a character and, in turn, a scene.’
    —Will Storr, The Science of Story Telling
16. Improvisation is intuition in action…The outpourings of intuition consist of a continuous, rapid flow of choice, choice, choice, choice.
    —Stephen Nachmanovitch, Free Play: Improvisation in Art and Life

On Working Skills

A lot of the lessons I learn come from exercises created by experts in their fields. Anything that tests your skills shows you the gap between where you truly are, and where you’d like to be.

17. Analyze your own skill set. See where you’re strong and where you need dramatic improvement, and tackle those lagging skills first. It’s harder than it sounds (most useful habits are), but it’s the only way to improve.
    —Twyla Tharp, The Creative Habit
    
    ***Tharpe expertly breaks down the skills she needs into different components like: Physical, Psychological, Mental, Literary. I found this part of the exercise a challenge in itself. And breaking it down like this is so you can focus truly on just one aspect is a gamechanger.
18. Make it an artistic task of yours to study twenty plays for their story, their fundamental plot, as it could be told in one sentence, one paragraph, and in one page; the kernel which is the essence of a play. Then you will train yourself to know what a story is, how it may be dramatically unfolded (you see things taking place—versus revealing the resultant condition). Also, you will learn what is enough story for three acts and what is not enough.
    —Elia Kazan, Kazan On Directing
    
    That exercise is a beast! But I ended up using this in my own work when I’m coaching an actor for an audition by giving the scene a title that boils down into a single, evocative sentence. For example: saying goodbye to my dad, leaving home for good.
19. My coach and mentor Larry Moss gave me the next exercise. He told me to spend a month at a time studying specific playwrights, and not just their plays – their lives. It changed the way I break down a script, and opened my eyes to patterns and details in scripts like nothing else. I decided to make this a lifelong study, and added to it by incorporating the study of one actor and/or one director per month. It would be hard to over-recommend this approach.

And last—I end with an idea that led the second half of my year:

20. “Whenever somebody gives up their pride to reveal a truth to others, we find it incredibly moving.”
    —Benjamin Zander, in The Art of Possibility

I keep reminding myself of that one, and all of the meaning behind it. I’ll take that with me into 2021.