Passionate Living

IPC Boogie 2009, diving after Wayne by divemasterking2000

“The years at home shattered my confidence“

I read that quote by Susan Jeffers [1] several weeks ago while re-reading Sir Ken Robinson’s The Element [2]. The book was discussing whether it’s too late to pursue your dreams after you’ve reached a certain age. In her case, Susan Jefferson already had two children when she decided to go back to school and start a career as executive director of a hospital.

It was a huge risk for her, but it proved out to be a risk worth taking. To date, her books have sold millions of copies and been translated into several languages, and she is a highly sought out speaker in the field of facing your fears. I think she has a lot to talk about from personal experience.

When I read that quote, part of me resonated with it but it attracted my interest mostly because I see real life examples from the people around me who are afraid to pursue their dreams because they’ve stayed at home for too long. It could be because they are a stay-at-home mom or dad or for other personal reasons. In my case, it’s because I stopped pursuing my dreams for a while [3] and am now pursuing them again in a different way [4].

“Life happens outside anyways“

Pursuing your dreams takes a multitude of characters, confidence being only one from other many important ones. I share the same feeling from Susan Jefferson, because there has been a period when I think I’ve stayed at home too much, making me slightly frightened when I stepped out the house again. Thankfully, things are starting to gain momentum for me, but there are people whom I see as still afraid of taking that step.

David Belle [5] says that we are trapped by our own fears, and we trade our freedom for a false sense of security. A friend said to me once, “sure it’s cool and calm inside, but you have to step out to feel the heat”. It would be nice if we could all stay inside our comfort zones, but the results we want are always in the hot zone.

Confidence plays an important part in determining the attitude we keep when we are pursuing our dreams. It determines the strength we have when working with people whom we meet in our journey towards our dreams – some of them very helpful, others are more challenging to deal with. And since we need the help of these people, interaction is inevitable and the risk of failure is always lurking around the corner.

“Just gonna do it. And just gonna love it“

This is a shout out to all of you who want to pursue your dreams: you’re not alone. The facts show, eagles don’t fly together. Even though you might feel like you’re the only one, realize there are huge and successful people who also started out afraid and doubtful.

They made it because they took action. It doesn’t matter whether it’s big or small action, what matters is that you take action. Because the human brain can’t tell the difference between big action or small action, it can only tell the difference whether you’re making action or not – and that’s where it gets the confidence: by knowing that you’ve made action.

So take the first step, and just get outside the house. It doesn’t have to be a big drama production, just make little baby steps that you can handle and be sure to be consistent doing it [6]. Failure won’t attack you with the big things; it will always attack you with the little things.

Because hey, we did say this year is gonna be awesome, right?

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[1] Susan Jeffers Official Website
[2] Book Review: The Element by Sir Ken Robinson, 2009
[3] Why People Hate MLM People, 2010
[4] For a Happy and Productive 2010
[5] That’s Why They Are Called Parkour Artists, 2009
[6] Zen Habits is a great blog containing plenty of tips on how to take action
[7] Photograph by divemasterking2000. Because you gotta jump!

Pedra do Bau (Climb) by Leonardo Palotta

Continuing the ideas I got after attending the 3rd TEDxJakarta [1], today I want to share with you the story of Jacko Hendrick [2] – the Sasando player. The Sasando is a rare instrument that originally comes from East Flores, and is now extinct in its home origin. Jacko is one of only ten people who can play this instrument, and he is working on preserving this instrument and also other endangered cultures from Indonesia.

He tells the story about how he was invited to the UN to play the Sasando and as he was playing a traditional Indonesian folk song, the same song was being played downstairs at the Malaysian expo. The people who heard this were confused, and they asked where did the song originally come from: Indonesia or Malaysia? This raises the issue of culture identity that has been highlighted lately in the politics of Malaysia and Indonesia.

Besides respecting and preserving the culture as part of our identity, Jacko also shared a bit about his life story – how he went from his home town in East Flores to the capital Jakarta and found it hard to find work as a musician. He said that he had gone through some dark eras in his life that he would rather not mention, but he managed to pull himself out of the hole and temper his own path to become a musician. Whatever that he could do – Jacko said – then that is whatever he will do to make a living and push on towards his dreams.

The next possible action

What can I do? I hear too many of my friends say that I can’t do it. Sometimes that merely means “I don’t find it important or interesting enough for my time and attention” – and in that case it’s OK because it’s not an important goal for you to achieve. But most of the time when it is an important goal, we say that we can’t do it because we focus on the problem and not the solution itself – therefore we will always see it as a problem and not as something that can be overcome.

What must I do? From all the choices and their respective consequences available to us, what action can we take? What steps can we execute in order to bring us closer towards our vision and goals? How can I make this as elegant and graceful as possible, so that I don’t cause anyone any inconvenience or have to resort to lesser methods to achieve what I want?

What do I need to do? From all the commitments we have and the limited resources we can use, how do I use it to it’s optimum efficiency? Is education a plus or a minus, when knowing too much can lead me to think that I can’t do it or it’s not possible? How do I unlearn the assumptions and beliefs that I’ve made in life and are hindering me more than they are pushing me forward in my family, health, and career?

If you got it, you strut it (in a good way)

That is one of the best questions that we can ask ourselves: what can we do? When we are confused about finding our passion in life or when we are searching for the solution towards a problem that’s bothering us, that’s when we need to ask what the next possible step is [3]. We need to focus on that spirit of consistently pushing on whatever the obstacles, and just focus on our goals.

Jacko eventually reached his passion to become a musician and make a living from it. That is the essence of passionate living – how to pursue what your passion is and then provide for your life from the work that you create in your passion as your vocation. When you live your passion as your life and not as a weekend hobby or as break time learning, you will be in better health, wealth, and integrity of mind.

What we have on our bodies, the language that we speak, and the ideas in our head, use them all to find our way towards our dreams. It is the lazy and irresponsible person who let’s other people and external conditions determine the outcome of her dreams. Be respons-able, be proactive, and take the action necessary to be the person that you see in your mind.

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[1] Special Report: 3rd TEDxJakarta, 2009
[2] Jacko Hendrick profile
[3] This also connects to an idea I received from Yuyun Ismawati, TEDxJakarta talker
[4] Photograph by Leonardo Palotta. Because climbers never quit!

In case you haven’t noticed, I’m a musician, who’s striving to become an artist. After several months of postponing, last night I finally got round to recording in the studio this song that my friends and I have been wanting to record for a while (hence the video in the sidebar). But as it turns out, the results of our recording were less than desirable.

I do have a very modest home studio setup in my house, but it’s capabilities are very limited. The reason why we wanted to record in the studio was so that all three of us could play and be captured together, to get a live vibe going on. But due to the (much) better equipment used to record, the unwanted details of our guitars (and also playing) were revealed by the sensitivity of the microphones and monitors.

This made me not play well. Until recently when recording in my home studio, I couldn’t hear these nasty squeaks our guitars make so it sounded just fine. But after hearing the truth inside the studio as the clock was ticking, it made me uncomfortable to play with all that squeaking and buzzing noise clearly audible in my headphone feedback.

Lesson that I learned? A lot. Both as a musician and as a human being

I see today that many up-start bedroom musicians (and even professional ones) are more concerned about the quality of their recording equipment and software than they are about their songwriting and playing abilities. I believe that a great song is still a great song even when recorded poorly. I think we need more musicians who focus more on the craft of songwriting and melody.

As a human being, I learned that most of the time it’s not new technology we need. The equipment and gadgets and other tools that we have are only that: tools. It’s up to our inner skills and creative engineering capabilities to make optimum use of the tools that we have and come up with an elegant solution – the most efficient solution using the least amount of resources.

So before you go upgrading your computer or changing cell phones, re-think what it is that you really need. Most of the time it’s better use of the tools we already have. All of the time it’s building a more solid identity so that we can identify the things that we really need instead of the things that we might want right now.

This is a good sign, being disappointed over failure. It means we are struggling for success

We plan to come back to the studio, but not anytime immediate. As musicians, we need to play better but also have more control over the sound quality of our instruments and figure the best solution, whether that may be changing strings or buying a new guitar with the sound character that we want. Hopefully it won’t cost us much budget wise.

As a person I learned that it’s always hard work. The people we see who have reached the kind of success we want may look like they got there easily. But behind the scenes it’s always hard work, and the temptation and frustration of wanting to give up is right there beside us in every step of the way.

So if you haven’t nailed it yet, come back another day. This is a long-term struggle. Take the time to re-strategize so when you do come back, you’re gonna nail that son-of-a-b*tch’s *ss down on the ground.

Now, time for some pictures:

Vocalists always have to charm the camera

At least look cool under pressure

Office worker by day, recording musician at night

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*On a side note, if you want to have a listen at our music you can do so HERE. You can also download the songs gratis and share them with your friends. I hope you like what we’ve made.

[1] Photograph by me and Frans