I’ve always believed that art is individual.  No two people think alike or look at art alike.  So it would make sense that no two people would create art the same either.

When I was in first grade, my teacher asked us to make a picture of some land and sky.  From what I remember, we were free to draw and color pretty much any way we felt.  While most of the other kids used color crayons, I picked magic markers.  I wanted my picture to be really bold.   I don’t remember exactly how I did the ground area but the sky is a vivid memory because of my teacher’s reaction in front of the whole class.

She took one look at my picture and said, “What did you do?  That’s not how the sky looks!  That is sloppy work!”  That’s all it took and I began to cry.  Yes, if you read Part 1 of this blog post, you’ll see another teacher made me cry.  It wasn’t like I did something to get in trouble.  Both of the teachers squashed my creativeness. 

Well, since I thought my dark blue, light blue, and purple sky looked just like some stormy skies I had seen, something came over me and I told her I thought my picture was just right.  Apparently she didn’t like me standing up for myself and took it as being disrespectful.  (Keep in mind, I was only 7 years old and I can’t believe I actually even said anything when most of the time I was like a mouse.)  However, by the end of the day, the teacher had called my parents and told them she needed to speak with them about my “behavior.”

Thank goodness, Mom and Dad, always supported my creativeness and stuck up for my choice to color my picture the way I did.

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Initiative is the drive to do something without being told.  Not everyone has this talent.  I, for one, struggle with initiative and just getting going sometimes. Because I have my own business, people assume I am really motivated.   But I remind them that I’m really just a regular kid who would rather play than work a lot of times. Apparently, there are many adults like this also. I have come up with a way to motivate myself without being told to do something.

For most people getting started is the hard part.  I figured out that if you make a list of everything that needs to be done and just go down the list and start doing each thing, you will have your list gone in no time.  Once you start, it is easier to finish it.

Why am I telling you this? Well, there are many people who live their whole life just being told what to do.  Those people are not the ones running companies.  Unless you always want someone telling you what to do, try my method.  Initiative can go a long way.  Then be proud of your efforts.

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