When I was a child and, ok, even into my 20’s, I literally would never try anything that I didn’t know I could do. Now I know most people would think that was absolutely nuts, but it somehow made sense to me lol! I really don’t know when the switch flipped, but at some point I decided that I should try new things even if I had absolutely NO IDEA what I was doing. Enter pen turning, and public speaking, and a host of other things that I have had some success with, some failure, but most importantly a lot of learning.
FIRST LESSON: try new stuff, Patrice. Unless you are trying that new thing with chainsaws, you are probably going to be ok!
Ok, so next up, I read that it takes approximately 10,000 hours of practice to become good at something. Talk about pouring cold water on my hopes and dreams! I’m sure I could become the next George Benson or Yanni (don’t be a hater people!) if I just concentrated more. Of course, I would practice! Lots of practice… But wait!
SECOND LESSON: practice does NOT mean creating immediate success over and over on a smaller scale and then voila you are Picasso. Apparently it means, fail. Fail LOTS. Fail BIG, and fail OFTEN.
So why am I bringing this up now? Because I have been DREAMING of creating this modern feather pen design for YEARS. I have created so many epic failures, so many funny results, so many “I’m never going to let anyone see this thing, and so much wasted material, that I had all but given up.
And then I listened to myself. One of the current projects I’m working on is an Udemy class on pen turning and yes, I actually recorded myself telling students that the only way to learn is to make mistakes. Feel the mistake, laugh at your mistakes, but make them because if you don’t make them you’ll never get past them.
Jeez I hate it when that happens. So I headed back to the shop, and tried again. And I’m finally happy with the result. Oh, and the pen is cool too but the result is the most important thing. THIRD LESSON: don’t ever stop creating.
Have a great week everyone!
