“DON’T UNDERTAKE A PROJECT UNLESS IT IS MANIFESTLY IMPORTANT & NEARLY IMPOSSIBLE”  Edwin Land.

I love this quote by the brilliant Edwin Land, a genius who absolutely lived his life daring mighty things.

Edwin was an American scientist & inventor who co-founded the ‘Polaroid Corporation’. He invented all sorts of things but most memorably the polaroid instant camera (1948) which made it possible for a picture to be taken & developed in 60 seconds or less.

Impossible is an interesting word isn’t it. It suggests, point blank, that something is impractical, inconceivable, unachievable, absurd & futile. And yet, people are doing the impossible every day. How? Because impossible is just something that hasn’t been done YET. So, for people like Edwin Land, impossible had an entirely different definition. To him it meant challenge, dare, invent & overcome.

This really resonates with me at the moment because my work is what I genuinely once considered impossible. Literally one year ago I sat amongst a small mastermind group discussing the teachings of Bob Proctor. We were all confessing to what job we would have if we could do absolutely anything. It was a ‘blue sky thinking’ task. I whispered, “An artist”. I was squirming in my seat to admit this. It sounded so ridiculous & fanciful. I had never studied art formally, I had experimented on & off with some sketching, life drawing & a bit of painting but I never gave it a lot of time or energy because I had a deeply held belief that it was a waste of time, that it would never come to anything & even worse, a sense that I didn’t deserve to do something that brought me great pleasure. Whenever I ‘got creative’ it made me so happy. I felt pure joy deep inside me. It’s hard to explain but I just felt totally fulfilled. It made me feel special too, like I had tapped into something so incredible that it was designed just for me. It was like having a little secret. Sadly though, my belief system converted all those wonderful feelings into guilt. Who was I to own such joy? Why was I so special to experience such deep happiness & contentment? Clearly I had to overcome my belief system, alter my mind-set and act on my dream. I had to do this because I wanted a daring & mighty life and I was willing to do anything to get it.

I had two amazing coaches (who I will introduce you to soon!) & I invested a lot of time & energy into converting my limiting beliefs into challenges. From chaos comes change, right! Well, I had had a gut full of chaos and the past year has seen an equal amount of change. It has been quite a dramatic shift & clearly not impossible!

So now I am an ‘artpreneur’. I love that word! I conceive, design, create, market & sell my art. Every single day I am doing something I have never done before. Every single day is a challenge. Whether it be painting a canvas, speaking the lingo at the local wood mill, mixing my own paint colours, designing a web site, setting up a market stall, converting from PC to MAC, distressing a pine board or screen printing onto it…..it is all brand new to me. All of it.

I am so grateful to be doing what I have always wanted and what really lights me up.

“…..manifestly important & nearly impossible.” Edwin Land, you are speaking my language!