Finally…Some Work So I Can Rest!

It’s been a hectic, busy, summer. And the weird thing is – the only projects I’ve been working on are my own – getting prepped for a show of my work for one, trying to get the studio organized for another.
Fortunately, most of my clients have decided to take the summer off, too – leaving me to my own devices.
This summer, those devices happened to be: move across country, move daughter and son-in-law across country, remodel son and daughter-in-law’s kitchen across country, move mother from New England to the South. No wonder I’m glad to be heading to Iraq for a really great client (can’t reveal now but will in a later post).
I think the most frustrating point of all these exercises has been the lack of control I could exert over each situation. After all, that’s what I do in real life as a producer – control (or appear to control) stuff and people. All I could do was react in the most reasonable, effective, and logical ways available to me. Which, truth be told, is exactly what I encounter on virtually every production I produce.
The point of all this stuff has served to remind me how the circumstances I encounter in the field will happen, no matter how much I try to plan ahead, with or without any intervention from me. And there can be only two outcomes – failure or success. Failure happens when I don’t take advantage of opportunities to manage these circumstances in a way that will lead me to a positive outcome. Success only happens when I am prepared for the unexpected, unwanted, and unmanageable. Some might call that experience. And I’m seeing more and more how that experience translates across a whole host of those events that are elements of our everyday lives and our careers. Call it cross-training.
SO the question today is: how are you using your everyday experiences to cross-train for tomorrow?

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