You know this guy is willing to get his hands dirty.

Note: I’m using the phrase “creative professional” instead of “artist”. Defining what an “artist” is…that’s a can of worms I don’t particularly want to open right now. “Creative professional” is pretty simply defined as someone who makes money from his or her creativity.

For my own purposes – as in, at what point will I consider myself a “successful” creative professional – I define it as being able to support my family’s needs with my craft, having the respect of my peers, and being proud of my own work.

Most people, though, would probably attach some level of fame and/or fortune to my definition, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. I’m not going to attempt to quantify those, though. Feels sort of impossible…

All of this adds up to “successful” being an incredibly subjective term. On one hand, you have my (relatively) humble idea of success, and on another you may have “Success is creating something that completely changes the medium.” Or maybe one has to change the world to be viewed as successful in your eyes.

Regardless of your definition of success, I believe that there are three common factors that contribute to that success in a creative profession.

Keep in mind that I’m not including factors that are common to all kinds of success. Things like work ethic, drive, and focus; you gotta have those things to be a successful executive. You gotta have those things to be a successful truck driver. A successful entrepreneur. A successful parent.

But three things set the successful creative professional apart from the wannabe successful creative professional. The guy or gal who retires from their craft, from the guy or gal who retires from a desk job, having only tinkered in creative endeavors throughout their lives.

1. Skill
   Developed over time through careful study and sometimes painful repetition. Skill is built brick by brick, mimicking the greats, reading, practicing. Skill is the only one of these factors that is completely within your control.
2. Talent
   You’re either born with it or you’re not. It can be fostered and built upon, but if you have no talent whatsoever in a particular area, making a living at that thing may be incredibly difficult.
3. Unique Vision
   Some people call this the “x-factor”. It’s an individuality that separates the good from the great. The great from the exceptional. The exceptional from the spectacular. The odd thing about this one is, I believe that even though it may be the one ingredient that actually does accomplish world-changing success, it can be found if you don’t have it. Skill can be built with practice. Lack of talent can be made up for by surrounding yourself with other talented people. But unique vision? This is something you have to discover.

   I believe that we all can have it. Whether or not your unique vision becomes the thing that changes the world, well, that’s probably a question of timing. Thus, this factor is still not completely in your control.

So if I’m right, and these three things are the factors that contribute to success in a creative field, what do they really mean? Practically speaking, of course.

Skill
Simply put: sharpen it. Your “day job” should probably be something that sharpen your skills. Your hobbies should probably things that sharpen your skills. Practice, practice, practice.

Talent
If you have none of it, at least learn how to recognize it. Then, be around those people. Earn their respect with your hard work.

If you do have it, foster it. Care for it. Respect it.

Unique Vision
Find yours. If you have nothing at all that sets you apart from others in your field, you have little to no hope of success. Unless your definition of success is to make millions creating bland ripoffs of other people’s work. Figure out what makes you different, and embrace that.

Bottom line: do what you love to do. If you can’t make any money at it, do it in your spare time. Each of us has the capacity to create…and few things bring anywhere near the same level of satisfaction.

What else would you say contributes to the success of a creative professional?

Running is always better with friends.

I’ve been a lazy bear. Coming out of hibernation isn’t fun. Or, torpor, rather. It’s just been a really busy season, so the ol’ blog’s been back-burnered for a while.

On this the last day of the first month of 2011, I wanted to dust it off, shake off my sleep, and give it another go. Join me?

After a somewhat needed running hiatus, I’m back at it. Building mileage each week and growing stronger every day. I’ve been able to stay reasonably free from pain this go ’round.

Like last year, for no other reason than to satisfy my need to over-share, I wanted to sort of share my plan for the year. Read on, if you dare!

My weekly mileage should be gradually increasing, but here’s what I’m aiming for:

• Monday: Rest, or very light lunch run. 3 miles
• Tuesday: Do a light lunch run, then run home from the office. 6 miles
• Wednesday: Run to the office from home, do a light lunch run, then do speed work that night. 9 miles
• Thursday: Do an easy lunch run, run home from the office again, then do a few hill repeats. 7 miles
• Friday: Run to the office from home again at tempo speed. 3.25 miles
• Saturday: Easy, light run. 3 miles
• Sunday: Long run. 10 – 30 miles

My long runs are increasing slowly…this weekend I’ll run 14. Then every other week, I’ll run 10 as a recovery run, adding 2 miles on my long weeks after that. So it’ll be 14, 10, 16, 10, 18… You get the idea. The goal is to get to an average of 50 miles per week prior to my first race of the year in May, with my longest week being about 60 miles, two weeks prior to my first race. Currently, I’m hovering around 20 miles per week.

Ahh, my race schedule. Because I know you’re just sitting on the edge of your seat, wishing I’d share. Here you go. Have a cookie.

• May 7: Greenland Trail 50K
• June 12: Garden of the Gods 10 Mile Run
• July 10: Summer Roundup Trail Run 12K
• August 21: Pikes Peak Marathon
• September 18: Autumn Color Run (half marathon)
• November 6: Mountain Masochist Trail Run (50-miler)

So keep checking back, kids.

That's a load of...

• Simplicity: In lifestyle, in philosophy…really in every part of my life, I need to simplify. I need to consume less. Use less. Require less.
• Discipline: What I’d like to see is a lot more growth in my ability to control myself.
• Physical Health: Not everyone needs to be superhuman. Same goes for me. But I could take my health a little more seriously.
• Creativity/Imagination: I wrote a post last weekish about how this part of me has suffered greatly in adulthood. I’d like to nurse it back to health.
• Faith: My atheist friends would disagree, however faith is central to who I am, and I want it to be strong. Strong like bull.
• Knowledge: I’ve gone a bit soft in the head. I need to sharpen old knowledge and set about to learning more.

What’s missing? Comment away…

Those chucks are awesome.

Well, since this blog is really just a personal deal, my pitch is also personal, and I’ve recently updated it. On my About page, it reads like this:

This site’s about my attempt(s) to be not bad, but good.

Can’t get much more succinct than that. Granted, every pro-blogger would advise against such a pitch, as it doesn’t really fill a need of anyone else. Good thing I have no intention of becoming a pro-blogger.

So if you’re ever wondering what this site is about, there you have it. It’s about me, trying to be not bad, but good.

Day One: Done.

However, I wanted to take a moment and share something from the fringes of my personal life. An old friend and his brother have been through an ordeal to which my words couldn’t possibly pay proper respect. I’ll leave it to you, my readers, to read their story for yourselves. It’s a story of sacrifice and love that I can’t wrap my head around.

In all of my joking and writing over the coming weeks. In my busy-ness and commentary about nothing, this story…this is something that matters. Nobility that I can’t even touch.

My heart and prayers are with you, Arnold family. And Ryan, you have my eternal respect. I’m in awe.

Chad & Ryan’s Story

If I'm breaking some sort of law...I'll take this down.

Along with another million or so people.

There’s this section of the blog that he’s been doing for a couple of years called “31 Days to Build a Better Blog“, and I’ve decided to do it. And blog about it. Just like my hero, Darren Rowse. See how that works?

If you’re new here, you should know that I have no aspirations of being “A-List”, but I certainly want to be better. This blog will never be in the top 10 visited in the world, but if I made the top 1,000, that’d be pretty cool. Maybe this is the first step in that direction.

Each day, I’m going to do the task assigned, and then I’m going to write about that task. Unless, of course, the task is to write a post. Then I’ll probably just do the one. I am pretty lazy, after all.

So sit back and enjoy my attempt to move from the E-List, to the D-List of bloggers!

Anarchy bad. Conformity good.

I’m ashamed.

Actually I’m not. And I’ve got other stuff like that. Stuff that everybody else seems to just lurve, meanwhile, I don’t get it. So, as part of my quest to become gooder, I’m going to catharsisize here and share them with you. In no particular order of dislike:

• Dave Matthews Band: Yep, this is actually redundant.
• Yoga: I really, really want to like this. Cause it looks so cool to be all bendy like that.
• House: The TV Show. I suppose I understand, cause Hugh Laurie is pretty much a genius. Everyone else is great. That kid from Dead Poets Society…awesome. Yeah, but has anyone else ever noticed that every single episode is…the same? Like, exactly the same. Not in the typical CSI sort of way. More like the writers are pulling a fast one on us. “Heh, heh. They’ll never know we use the exact same plot in every episode, but just change out the names of diseases and stuff!”

  Person is sick with some obscure mystery disease. House suspects he knows what it is, but cares more about being right than about people. Kid from Dead Poets Society tries to be his conscience. Boss lady yells at House chief of police style. House’s staff holds him in disdain, and doesn’t believe him despite the fact that he’s always right. Oh no, the person’s going to die! No, wait a minute…oh…yep. House was right. Again.

• John Eldredge Books: For my Christian friends…sorry, I disagree. With, well, lots of stuff he says.
• Google Wave: It’s bad for several reasons. And I’m a nerd for having it on this list.
• The Twilight Books: Oh yes, I did in fact read the first one. My suspicions were correct. Stephenie Meyer is a terrible writer. Not as bad as I am, but still, terrible. Though I guess millions of people can’t be wrong.

I think “scorpino” sounds cooler.

On my runs, I’ve seen some crazy stuff. And here is a list of that stuff. For your personal enjoyment.

• A mule deer.
• A coyote who chased me for a ways.
• A bear.
• A momma bunny with about 300 baby bunnies…who decided being alive was more important that being a mommy when she scampered off faster than the babies could keep up.
• A woman in her 60′s. She was passing me.
• A beetle the size of my hand. Not exaggerating.
• A porcupine who “hid” from me by rolling into a rather large spikey ball.
• A group of kids smoking pot.
• A rattlesnake.
• A dog trying to bite me.
• And as of today, a scorpion.

Oh what wonders lie on the trail of…wonder…work…anyway, I see some cool stuff.

Well, I sort of worked out an analogy this weekend that might explain a bit where I’m at with the whole thing.

Oh, and if you’re a hard core pacifist, you may not relate very well to this analogy.

Imagine when you’re born, your creativity is born with you. An infant, but alive and uninhibited. As a child, just like you likely were, your creativity is somewhat wild, pretty original, and more than a little free.

Problem is, as you get older, inhibitions start to creep in. Imagine inhibitions are those creepy demons in the stripped shirts from the worst Christmas movie of all time, A Christmas Story. These guys crawl in, and grab your creativity. They hold it in this weird, restrained, contorted position. They don’t allow it to go out, experience the world, stretch it’s muscles, work out…nothing. Your creativity is stunted. It’s held back. As you grow up and mature, your creativity is not allowed to do the same. By the time you’re an adult, your creativity is either dead, or a vegetable.

Those creepy dudes come from everywhere. School. Your parents. Your friends. Society. Religion. All of these expectations turn into nasty inhibitions that sneak up and grab your creativity and torture it to death.

My creativity has done a decent job of keeping some of these inhibitions at bay. Not good enough of a job, though. My creativity is out of shape. Some parts of it are atrophied. It’s a little sickly. Functioning, but barely. Still bound up and held down by those striped shirt punks that should have been shot long ago by a Red Ryder carbine-action, two hundred shot Range Model air rifle with a compass in the stock and a thing which tells time.

So now, I need to fight. I need to allow my creativity to fight like an animal. To beat these inhibitions back. Kill them, if necessary. It needs to be violent. Mean. And it needs to push its boundaries. See how far it can run, how much it can lift.

For a while, I need to just…create. Even if it’s shocking. Even if it’s crap. If I need to write a story about a family of little people who cannibalize the citizens of a Michigan town, I need to do that. If I need to write an expose that criticizes the mating habits of raccoons, I need to do that. Doesn’t mean I’ll be creating stuff like this forever. I just gotta get my creativity back in healthy shape.

And it may take some messiness to do it. Those striped-shirt buggers gotta die.

America's Greatest Challenge

Actually, that’s not true. I’ve been madly in love with the mountain since then. My first ascent was with a group of friends, and I fell in love with every step of the 13 or so miles. We didn’t even know there was a race then. Not until we saw 80-year-old guys practically sprinting up the final 16 Golden Stairs.

I wanted that.

That first ascent got me to the Springs, and it inspired me to run that race 16 years later.

Now, you should know. I won’t be competitive. In fact, I’ll be a huffin’ and a puffin’ pretty much the entire way up and I’ll still finish somewhere toward the rear side of the middle of the pack. I’m not running this race to win. I’m running it because I love the mountain.

Yeah, yeah, all mush aside, I’m a month away from the adventure of my life. My run in (pun intended) with my first ultra was probably my biggest challenge to date, but my trip up the Pike to eclipse that. By far. A half marathon up a 14-thousand-food mountain. If I didn’t know that my finish time will be mediocre at best, I’d be pretty proud.

Wait, I haven’t run this yet. And some of my previous distance efforts have proven that I can’t quite claim superhumanhood. Not sure if I’ll ever have that honor. I’m happy just to chase superhumans up and down mountains while I pretend to be even close to their level of awesome.

Okay, back to this race. I’ve been running, and I’m a bit injured. It appears, from my armchair, that the fracture from earlier this year has changed my gait, and it’s caused quite the case of tendonitis in my foot/feet. It sucks, but I’m good to go. One thing that’s not so good to go, is my weight, probably the original source of my running injuries.

I’ve been running a little on the heavy side for a while now. I’m not “overweight”, per se. Just heavy for a runner with my frame. That’s haunted my running hobby for a while, but running uphill for 4+ hours means every extra pound really counts. So in addition to logging a decent number of miles, many of them uphill and above 12,000 feet, I gotta lose me some weight.

Normally, I’m not in any way obsessed with pounds. The uphill makes them matter to me.

So I’m going to attempt to drop down considerable weight within healthy limits over the next month. Naturally, I’ll be eating quite a bit from the increased training miles, but I gotta make sure I’m burning more than I’m taking in.

This post has gotten quite a bit longer than I originally intended. My next few posts will be quite a bit briefer.

I promise.

I hope.