I have been teaching for ten years and this experience of working intimately for brief periods of time with other writers has been by far the greatest gift of my professional career.
A lot of writers are invested in how talented they are and in figuring out how to get others to perceive them in the same way. I’m not apt to become one of them. I’m a worker. I have gotten where I am because I work hard, not because I am talented.
The biggest compliment for me is for someone to say that I have been helpful, or my book has been helpful, or my body of work over the years has been helpful. Or that something I said or did made a difference in their career.
Another big compliment for me is when a writer says that I have inspired them. When I have inspired them, it’s usually because of all of my hard work and because of my ongoing commitment to writers over the years. I don’t necessarily take these compliments personally because I am driven to do the work that I do just as an acorn is driven to become an oak tree. It’s part of my DNA, as Gary Vaynerchuk would say. It’s just a natural outpouring of who I am.
And I don’t merely write. I write, I teach, I speak, I facilitate, I produce, I partner, I connect, I host, I advocate, I refer, I respect, and I orchestrate. I am a huge fan of writers worldwide. And people who know my work, know that I would not push them so hard if I did not care.
I believe that writers are important and that our work is important, not just to us, but to the future. I believe that pushing writers to achieve their personal best is my job and I love my job. I have been called a “Gentle Taskmaster.” I have been called “demanding and effective.”I think of myself as something of a whip-cracker because I have a fiery personality and it has always been useful for motivating others, even as I motivate myself. I am probably too fiery for some writers’ tastes, too demanding, and too coachy. Some writers want to be coddled, not coached. And this is fine. But they should probably not work with me.
More than anything else I think writers work with me because I am a good mirror. I reflect back to them what they could be writing. I reflect back how they could be advancing their career right now regardless of whatever drama is happening in the industry, or in their families, or in their circle of friends. I reflect back that they are rife with creative potential…but only if they actualize it.
I never do my students’ work for them. (I used to, but I’ve been bitten in the butt enough times to learn that it is not my job to do other people’s work.) Instead, I stand in front of them, as any good coach would and say: “This is your career. Are you going to do the work or what?”
And then I get out of the way, and let them work. And the results are magnificent. Inspiring. Powerful. I cry sometimes reading my students work because I am so moved by their creative self-expression. So I try really hard not to stroke egos, and to encourage effort instead.
We live in a world where self-expression is rarely valued. Almost never does someone say to us, you can take who you are and grow it into something incredible. But that is what I do in my classes, day in and day out. I teach many classes every year, reaching hundreds of students, who inspire me every time they turn in an assignment.
Talent is not teachable. Luckily, for me, hard work is teachable. And every person is talented in many ways, which are often latent.
Chris Brogan has said that what people want more than anything is to be wanted. But being wanted often comes with strings attached from the people doing the wanting. I think what people want more than anything is to be seen for who they truly are without anyone trying to take anything from them. From the point of being seen, your can move forward in an infinite number of directions because no one is holding you hostage or putting conditions on your freedom of expression.
I see my students because they show me who they really are. And this, above all, is the greatest gift of what I do. And so, I keep going forward in all aspects of my work, trying to wake writers up to who they already are, and trying to nudge them to move forward on their own steam.
I want to thank every student I have worked with over the past ten years for allowing me to push you to create more. I have a great deal of respect for every person who is brave enough to express his or her self. It takes guts to do your work in this world and maintain it and not got sucked into the songs and dances of other people.
I believe that there has never been a better or more exciting time to be a writer. And I am going to hold the course and keep doing good work. I hope every writer I know — and that’s thousands of us — will continue to do the same thing.