Recently I went to the Van Gogh Immersive in San Francisco and I LOVED it!  He had over 2500 works of art in his collection at the time of his tragic death.  Then, he couldn't give his work away.  Today, it's worth multiple millions of dollars and I'm sure he's looking down on it and thinking "well, it's about damn time!"

Following that, I was having a conversation with another artist who, when they get tired of working on a piece of their art, but they know it's not done, they walk away and say, "good enough".  As I'm witnessing this, I'm thinking to myself, is it?  And who is it good enough for?  You?  Your client?  Who?  What would Van Gogh have done?  Would he have walked away and said, "good enough"?

I have these kinds of conversations every day with other artists and it astonishes me that they wouldn't want to give their all, their best, to the product they're putting out in the world.

My Mom used to always tell me that if you're going to do something, do it to the best of your ability from the outset.  If you can't, you have no business doing it in the first place.  She wasn't wrong.  Just because you don't like one aspect of what you do doesn't mean you don't have to do it well.  If you don't do it well, then go out there and learn.  Learn it so well you can do it in your sleep.  Learn it so well that even though you don't like it, you are the BEST at doing it.

Become an expert at ALL the aspects of what you do and if you really can't stomach some portion of it, hire someone who IS the best at it and have them step in to help.  There's no shame in getting help for what you really despise doing.  Form a team so you can produce the best product possible.  Be the best at what you do and let your team do the rest.  Or would you rather settle for mediocrity?  WWVGD?

Don't settle.

Until next time...