Hold on to your hats, this post is going to be a bit more philosophical than most of my posts.  Just bear with me.

I’m not great at anything.  That’s not me trying to be humble or some kind of self-deprecating humor.  That’s just a fact, I’m not great at anything.  There are definitely some things I have some skill at, some things I’m good at, but I wouldn’t categorize myself as great in about anything.  Now here’s the thing, if it is something I care about, no one will work at it harder than me.

I was born with some god-given talent.  There were some things growing up I was better at than others.  Some of these things I loved, there were people much better at it than me.  I love to draw, always have.  This is something I’ve worked at my whole life, something I’ve always tried to get better at.  This is a work in progress, I still draw and still try and learn.  When I went to art school there were some many people better than me.  There were so many people with amazing skills that they never needed to work at.  I saw this and it depressed the shit out of me.  I learned early on, I would never be as good as these people, never.  This is where I made the decision I wouldn’t try to be better, that was a losing battle.  What I could do was work to be the best I could be.  I know it sounds cliche, and it is, but that’s how I felt.  I could work harder at it than they could.  Sure it was depressing when something I would work for weeks on wouldn’t be as good as something someone drew the night before, but I was getting better.  Then eventually they couldn’t keep turning in stuff the night before and it be good and they started to fail and drop out.  I had a 3.7 GPA and barely got beat out for best of show for my portfolio and demo reel.  The other people I graduated with, they were more like me than the others.  None of us were the best, but we worked everyone else under the table.

I had a teacher in school who told me every class period I had with him for eleven weeks that I sucked, that I had no talent.  Told me I should just give up sometimes.  I worked my ass off.  I had to quit my job at the time so I could take classes I wasn’t even in.  I pumped out new drawings for him every week that I spent hours on.  I didn’t sleep, I didn’t go out, I worked.  Each week he would take my new batch of work and told me it was shit.  I almost gave up, I almost dropped the class.  With the help of friends and family I made it to the end.  There was a portfolio review and then he took everyone in another room and told us how we did.  It was alphabetical and I was towards the end.  I had to sit for about three hours as all sorts of people walked into that room and came out crying, swearing or both.  Some people were in there for 20 minutes or so.  Needless to say I was freaking out, because this was the guy that hated my work.  It was finally my turn and I made my way into the room about shaking.  He thumbed through my portfolio, barely glancing at it.  Then he looked at me and said, “I’ve seen this all before.  You have the best portfolio in the class, I’m giving you a B+.  That doesn’t mean you are graduating though, now get out of here.”  He smiled at me and I thanked him.  That is one of the single greatest moments in my life.

I’m not great at anything.  I don’t need to be.

I see this a lot with a lot of people, especially people who are really good at things.  That’s fantastic, but a lot of them never want to learn or get better.  They think they have all the answers and there is nothing anybody can tell them to be better.  They can’t be better, they are already perfect.  Well, I call bullshit.  I will always have more respect for somebody who never thinks good enough is good enough.  They are constantly fighting and learning to get better at what they want to.  They are never satisfied, because there is always something they can do to improve themselves.  Those are always the people I choose to be around, to work with.

I don’t need someone who is amazing, I want somebody who is good.  More often then not, they’re the ones that truly get it.

See you on the other side – Derek