Every week, Praxis’ education director, T.K. Coleman sends out a weekly email to all the students. These emails are insightful and they’re always helpful pieces of advice for our career. I always look forward to seeing T.K.’s emails because they’re inspiring and motivational. This week is about finding meaning in your work by making it your own.
Make it your own!
Whatever “it” is, find a way to put your own unique signature on it.
If you discover a great insight from a book, for instance, find a way to rephrase it with your preferred set of metaphors.
If you hear a story you like, find a way to retell it with your own style of delivery.
If you have a task you need to do, even if it’s doing the dishes or taking out the garbage, find a way to put your own stamp on it.
For everything you do, ask yourself “What does it mean for ME to do these things?”
Imagine that your job replaced you with someone else. What would change besides the mechanical aspects of what you do? What would that company lose in terms of the manner, the charisma, the energy, the tone, and the flair that characterizes YOUR way?
You are more than just your ability to show up and get things done.
Productivity is necessary, but so is personality.
WHAT you do is made indispensable by HOW YOU do it.
Booker T. Washington wrote “Excellence is to do a common thing in an uncommon way.”
That requires more of the things that only you can do, not just more hours doing the same old things.
“That sounds great, TK. But what about universal things that are the same for everyone? Take math for instance. Mathematical truths are objective facts. How can I make THAT my own? And at my job, there’s ONE right method that my supervisor wants me to use for performing certain tasks. There isn’t much room to bring personality to it.”
Great question.
Here’s my answer: Do what you did when you were a child. Bring your imagination along for the ride.
When it comes to math, for instance, we’re dealing with universal concepts that are the same for everyone. But how many people do you know from your math classes who are good at explaining the Mathematical Way to Choose a Toilet? or talking about Math as a Feature of the Universe? That takes more than knowledge of universal facts. It takes personality. It takes the willingness to embrace and express ones own unique mix of curiosity, humor, and idiosyncrasy.
Or take this cold-calling scene from “The Pursuit of Happyness.” It’s impossible to bring imagination to something like that, right? Wrong.
It’s possible to bring imagination to anything. Moreover, it’s not just possible. It’s necessary.
An improv teacher once told me “Acting is not about trying to imitate someone else. It’s about learning how to bring your own feelings, gestures, and impulses to the circumstances defined by the script.”
He was trying to teach me what I later came to understand as the Stanislavski Method: that the “character I perform on the stage” has to be unearthed from the substance of my own soul.
I pass that message to you.
Work is art. Creativity is art. Play is art. Performance is art. Making it through the day is art. Pursuing your dreams is art. It’s all art.
And in order to make great art, you have to learn how to bring yourSELF to the role.
Your performance has to be sourced from the substance of your own soul. Otherwise, it’s just a cheap and replaceable imitation of someone else.
YOU are not replaceable, but that’s only true if you actually give us you.