When Ernest Hemingway was a young American expat struggling to find his voice as a writer of pristine, bone-thin fiction, he would make time to study the work of Impressionist artists.
There was a message in their work, he believed, a code, that he could build into his craft. But he insisted on viewing the paintings on an empty stomach, when he was hungry, believing that this would help him to decipher their genius.
When Elton John was first making himself a force in rock music, he collaborated on songs that spewed raw power out of his piano and onto the streets. Levon. Rocket Man. Daniel. In the years to come, hooks and bubble gum would take the place of the fire put forth by the once confused and hungry musician, searching for something powerful. Something just beyond his reach.
There is an algorithm of sorts between hungry eyes and exceptional achievement. A correlation. As long as a person remains committed to a slightly impossible dream– to a breakthrough in the arts, business, science–that seems to be beyond their talent, knowledge, and ultimately their grasp, they have the possibility of making history. Or at the very least, of affecting positive change.
Think of the lawyers you know. The doctors. The bankers, salespeople and entrepreneurs. How many are just lawyers, doctors, bankers, salespeople and entrepreneurs….. and will always be just that. People with only a title or a profession after their names?
Virtually all of them. Why? Because they are happy being content. There is zero passion. They don’t want to breakthrough anything. They are no longer hungry, If they ever were, and without that fire in the soul that drives the great ones to walk on hot coals, to study Matisse while you are starving, to love what you do and who you are with with reckless abandon, you cannot find what all true explorers discover: that elusive joy, that impossible dream, that lies just beyond our reach.
I recall friends advising me that the happiest people are those with no dreams. No ambitions. No drive to make an impact on anything. In their small and routine lives, they are satisfied, peaceful, early to bed, early to rise. The world turns and they drive off to work, oblivious to all but the weekly report they must file with their manager. They are, I have been told, the true winners.
I have never bought that for a second. The sweet scent of a distant challenge, the call of the wild that beckons me into the jungle of the unknown, that is where the magic lies. That is where the sparks fly. That is where the volcanoes erupt.
I know there is something profound left to do. I have sucked it all in, eaten everything in sight, and still my eyes are hungry.
Carnivorous!
Mark Stevens
CEO
MSCO | The Art and Science of Growing Businesses
*Image courtesy Robert D Bruce via Flickr
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Very nice post. People must be passionate about their dreams. Without vision people perish.
I couldn’t agree more Mark. Happened upon this place by a series of coincidences and by another funny coincidence (God-incidence?) you have touched my core and shown me that everything I wrote and felt and thought yesterday for my charity it spot on.
And for that I thank you. It’s always wonderful to get a little confirmation
I believe in every single word you wrote, I also
Want To leave a mark in this world and am hungry
For making my out of this world dreams come
True