Do what you love...

In his lecture, Tom Kelley gives this quote:

"Do what you love. You'll be better at it." -Francis Ford Coppola

How true is that? It reminds me of the parable of the talents. Three men are given different amounts of talents. The first receives five, the next two, and the last one. The first two men go out and use there talents and receive gain but the third is afraid and buries his talent and has no increase. In the end the one who didn't use his talent looses it.
I think our talents really play into what we love and what we want to do, so we need to use them, develop them, and as we do that I think it's rewarding and brings us happiness.
I think about when I have a class at school that isn't my favorite, like algebra, it's rough and I dread going to it most of the time.
But when I go to a class I love, like sculpture or photography, it is much more enjoyable and I do better at it.
I think the reason we are better when we do what we love is because we're willing to put the work in. We enjoy the work and so we put more time in and are happier and more creative.
I just shut down when something is unenjoyable. I can do it but I just put it off and then I probably don't do the best job that I could if I loved what I was doing.

I also really loved how he talked about thinking like a traveler. When your'e traveling or seeing a new place your brain is going a hundred miles faster because you want to take EVERYTHING in. But at home we lose that because everything is so normal.
It reminds me of my driver's ed class in 10th grade. My teacher told us that a lot of accidents happen when people are on there way home. Why? Because they became complacent. They think, "I'm on my way home and I know the way now and everything is so familiar..." etc and they aren't thinking or watching as sharply. He told us to vary our routes. Think like a traveler.


USE YOUR WHOLE BRAIN! I like that.

It was really interesting how he talked about this book:

The Hare brain is the part of your brain under direct control. But he tortoise mind is where contemplation happens. He said that people will do things to address the tortoise mind with things like writing a question down before bed in the hopes that the tortoise mind will mull it over in your dreams. I think that is so cool! I want to try that, especially because he said that your tortoise mind has a hard time thinking when there is a billion things happening at once and so you have to find time to relax and daydream. I like that. I also believe it. I come up with good ideas when I daydream.

So I learned mostly from Tom Kelley this week and I liked it a lot and there are these two books above that sound interesting to read in the future.