Be strong, Be you, Be new

I start here a new experimental section about my readings, encounters and everything that fuel me, in the hope it can fuel you too.

A few months ago I posted about the Book of the Revolution. For a mysterious technical reason I cannot move this post to this new section, but this post would typically join this section.

My last reading, or "hearing" as I consumed it as an audiobook, was Letters to a Young Artist by Anna Devaere Smith.

Ok, borrowing Rilke's great book name is a bit too much but who read Rilke nowadays? Do you?

I like the format of this book: short letters written to a virtual young artist living in Denver. It makes the chapters short and the full book very dynamic.

This book keeps a restrictive yet classical definition of an artist. The one that obliges you to dress a special way to make "AAArt". Thanks to Seth Godin, we now have broaden the artist definition and Anna Devaere Smith unconsciously adheres to this definition.

So, if your daily life is taking risks, innovating, pushing new ideas, creating, you must read this book, because you are an artist.

Anna Devaere Smith puts a strong focus on "presence", which is awareness of being here, intelligence, empathy, courage of being oneself.

She focuses on absolute authenticity, the necessity to take distance to better understand our work around.

I liked the chapter about Confidence. For her, Confidence is static and stupid, while Determination is confidence in motion, a commitment to fight.

I was particularly sensible to her Self-esteem letter. Like all artists and creators, our Self-esteem plays yo-yo. Self-esteem is not ego, it is confidence that there will always be a way to get out of trouble, that in bad days it will start again. It is resourcefulness.

Self-esteem is the core of what organises yourself and others around an idea, the foundation of all human projects.

Meditation is part of her self-esteem search, and, yes, this is core to my life too as self-esteem only come from inside.

Discipline is paramount to all artist life. I love to read (hear) this. Accountancy, PR, marketing, body exercise,... all this must be part of the artist's daily routine.

This book is full of great recommendations on topics like building trust, freedom (which cannot be without sheer joy !), procrastination, finding mentors, creating your own personal brand, resilience,...

This book just makes me feel like blogging again.

It exists on paper, Kindle and audio book. Not sure it is translated yet. The audio book, read by the author is about 3h in 3x 1h chunks.