Streamlining III

The third installment in my Streamlining series of posts.

It's about knowing who you are and what you do and what you are actually offering and where you stand atm. I think the biggest thing to know is to know thyself and where you stand and what you are doing.

No, you don't have to stick to it forever. But whatever it is you are doing at the moment, be as honest as you can with yourself with it. Know what you do best and know what needs work the most. Everything of course can use more work always. But what's your strong points and what's your weak points. Use them in a synergistic manner.

I don't think the idea of doing one thing and sticking with that...

...is the only way to go. I think it is absolutely possible to do multiple things very well if you put your mind to them all. But I also do believe to be master at them. It is necessarily to perfect that one thing, or at least really fully master that as your focus. And then let everything else dance around that. It is also ok to eventually move from one to another as your focus. Because there is a level of doing that requires that certain amount of dedication and concentration.

For me it was at first to really grow with my piano. I grew to a high enough of a level to reach something that was good. But I wasn't good enough to really compete well in the real world. But that's not the purpose of that. I didn't know where in the world would have my piano degree really lead me. I wanted to perform, and be a pianist, but it really was something I struggled severely comparatively speaking with everyone else who were studying piano around. They all were much better then me technically and played significantly better then me. But I just did what I did and got as good as I could and really did really focused at one point in my life to fully at least have dedicated to it that once and have experienced how that actually feels. What it actually feels like to have really spent that amount of focus and dedication and what that yields. Because once you have that first one, it's just a matter of feeling there again in the future.

I did that by giving 3 months, nonstop, no breaks, every day, five hours of piano playing to get that level of commitment. It was very painful to work like that for me because I never really felt good with playing all that standard repertoire. I've always just wanted to play improvs. But I never studied Jazz and that was the only known improv that was acceptable. But I didn't really want to play that either. So after my degree and having dedicated to it, I just thought it's not really for me anymore. I felt that's just wrong, I didn't want to play that much piano.

But now I realize I just didn't want to play five hours of classic repertoire a day. I have no problems playing hours of improvs a day. It's what I always wanted to do and play. So now that I figured it out years later because I got inside Second Life. Which I never thought would be something that would lead anywhere. I got into Second Life for an audition for acting in a documentary. I had no idea that would have led me to discovering my improv music world and that there are people who do want to hear them.

The point is you never know where. But you do need to know where you are right now and show your strengths all the while developing what you are weak at. And then keep doing it over and over. But finding that thing that you absolutely love to do and can constantly do it over and over until it's amazing is the key. Then it's just adding a couple more things. Usually no one thing should take more then 3-5 hours a day. There's 24 hours a day. Minus 8 hours of sleep, 16 hours left. Minus 3 hours of meal, that' 13 hours left. minus the 5 hours on that main thing, that's 8 hours left. Use that to add another two more things and you'll have it all working. If you want to add more, start killing two birds with one stone...which is my next article.

Post by Paul Kwo