Talent Isn’t What Makes You Good. This Is:

We talk about talent as thought it’s some wildly magical ingredient to success.

But, it is such a teeny, tiny, infinitesimal part of the equation, no matter what artistic medium we are considering.

The rest doesn’t come for free. And it shouldn’t.

The rest is all about passion. Passion and drive. Focus and steadfastness. Rawness. Realness. The willingness to work until you almost collapse. Until you’re rubbed raw. It’s having the balls to rip your heart open and pour the pulsating contents into your art.

Talent doesn’t mean anything.

What matters is the ability to completely immerse yourself in your art and create from a place deep within you. A very, very scary place. A place you feel you must go.

From this secret and painfully intimate location, you are able to look directly into the ugliest of inner truths. You stare right at them. You study them.

Then, you share these seemingly hideous, glaring, insane truths with the world, in whatever medium is yours.

Your pain becomes your art.

Your life is your canvas.

Your fears, your flaws, your secrets, your darkest qualities are transformed into something beautiful.

You are able to transmute and transmit your direct experience so deeply, so effectively that your heart grows a hand and reaches out to touch people.

And it touches them so hard that they, like you, are forever changed by this creation.

Talent alone is not enough.

Diving into beautifully your flawed self and being a courageous warrior of truth is a much, much larger part of the equation.

Being your art, becoming with your art, and always telling the hard, unvarnished truth is what makes you good.

Photo from Flickr, https://flic.kr/p/6CRxW.