One Question to Ask Before Abandoning Your Creative Potential

"How do I want to be known?" Lois asked me Monday morning.

"Not what you do, not what your business offers, not what problems you solve," she clarified.

"Is there a specific manner in which you've impacted people's lives?

"What exactly would you want to be known for?”

I’ve been thinking about her prompt all week.

Lois is my writing coach. She likes to drop sneaky little prompts into our Copy Club to keep my writing on its feet. So, more than anything, I think it would mean the world to me if I was known (or remembered) as someone who could tell a really good story.

I want to be known as the person who inspires—a role model to help build road models–pathways to passion.

I want to be known as someone who stopped ignoring their true calling and started acknowledging their capability to pursue those passions.

I want to be known for always seeking opportunities in the mundane.

“What are you currently doing to get there?” Lois continued.

Right now? I’m observing, taking note if you will.

I’m investing in continued learning, archiving, and asking for feedback.

Offloading things that no longer serve me. But most importantly, I’m consuming art. Art of all kinds.

• The art of theater and script writing

• The art of acting and set design

• The art of good fucking dialogue

But Lois makes me think. “What pieces of you are holding you back from that reality? Is there any of it that makes you nervous, scares you, or subconsciously holds you back?”

I thought about it...

“Letting someone down,” I said out loud before writing it down. The idea of leading someone astray. Knowing all of the ways in which we can connect these days and how we can communicate and convey our message is impossibly omniscient.

It’s overwhelming and not all-knowing.

I want to be able to teach things. But I don’t have a framework as much as I do a feeling for most things. So, to not err on the side of humility would be a failure for me.

What makes me ache is seeing people with true raw talent and potential who never believed in themselves enough to pursue or act on it.

I feel for those who weren’t permitted to follow their passion for art, to think wildly and radically about what they would become, or if that part really even mattered.

I feel for those who never had the privilege of a nurturing environment—the atmosphere we creatives need to push our work forward, the support we need as inspired individuals to have the actual audacity to see to our dreams and make them a reality.

So, yeah. If there is something I want to be known for, it would be to inspire. To guide. To lead the forward-thinking creatives of the future into seeing and believing in their true potential without having so much worry to just fucking go for it.

I want to be known as someone who shows people they are truly capable of anything. I stopped ignoring my true calling just this year. I think it’s about time you stopped ignoring yours, too.

Letting my true passions lay dormant would be the last thing I want to be known for.