Anthony Hopkins has composed a classical album. Just like that.
Ambition, he says, had nothing to do with it.
He’d always played the piano – discovered music before he ever thought of attempting acting. “I have a piano – I play every day, if I’m home – and I’ve always improvised music and composed,” he says. “But I never took any of it seriously. I did it not out of ambition to be a musician or to be a composer, but for the sheer pleasure of it. Stella (his wife) heard my playing over the years and said, ‘Why don’t you write those down?’”
Acting had been an accidental choice “I didn’t have a set idea that I was going to become an actor. I had no idea what I was going to become – I thought I’d end up in the steelworks in Port Talbot for the rest of my life. But by chance I saw a scholarship advertised in the Western Mail to the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, and I applied for it and got it. I’d never acted in my life before.”
This then is the role of chance. Of being responsive to what’s going on in the moment rather than a fixation with the future. Of experimentation. Of not putting yourself in a box.
And demonstrates that there are many things that we can do, that we could be good at AND enjoy. It’s making a choice that feels right at the time that counts. Not worrying if it’s the perfect one. One thing paves the way for the next, in the form of time or money or ideas or connection or clout or opportunity. It’s unlikely for eg. that he would have found it as easy to have his music produced, if he wasn’t Anthony Hopkins, the actor.
Reading the Sunday papers this weekend and an article on Quincy Jones who at 78 is as vital, alive and engaged with the world, passionate and vocal as ever. I was really struck by what he said about the moment he discovered the piano. Listen to this..
” We were baby gangsters, we thought we can take over this city (they had just moved to a small town near Seattle to escape the racism and gangland murders of Chicago). One night we heard about some ice cream and lemon meringue pie coming into the recreation centre, so we broke into get it” He got in through the supervisor’s office,where he saw his first piano. It was dark and I almost the closed the door but, thank God, that higher power that said: “Idiot!Go back in that room!’ I went back in and when I touched that piano, I knew I would be a musician” After that he laid his hands on every instrument he could, tuba, sousaphone, French horn, trumpet, trombone and the rest is musical legend.
I know he’s one of the greats, one of the worlds exceptional talents and that moment was really his talent PLUGGING IN – but we all have the same capacity for instinct. When something just FEELS right, when it’s got an energy about it. It’s the same for love and houses by the way.
Trouble is we can often ignore it, or suppress it or kill it with logic. Which is the equivalent of Quincy walking out of that room without touching that piano….
This is the sort of stuff we’d have missed out on if he had
Got sent this link the other day – www.prizeproperty.co.uk- someone selling their £650,000 house for £30.
Well not exactly. What they are doing is this – since slow market conditions meant they couldn’t sell their house through their estate agent they decided to turn into a lottery ticket instead. So selling 25,000 tickets at £30 each. The winner gets the house, all fees paid and the left over cash to charity to boot.
Inspired!
It works because to use cringy corporate speak – it’s a WIN WIN. The vendors win because they sell their house for asking price (if they don’t sell enough tickets they simply don’t sell) and the punters have a decent shot at the odds.
Love it. Proof yet again that it’s not the recession, competition, etc etc alone that dictate our destinies. It’s how we approach it. I think they call it a game changer.
Is there something you’d like to do, that you haven’t been able to because money, or lack of it, competition – too much of it, has been holding you back? How could you change the game?
Listened to an amazing programme on Radio 4 last week – Midweek with Libby Purves . Among the guests were famed heart surgeon Professor John Wallwork aka ‘The Heartman’ and others all of whom have experienced so much with their lives.
At one point in the programme Professor Wallwork said this ” somewhere along the line we as a nation have lost the courage to fail”.
In other words to risk, to go into unchartered territory, to trust our instincts and follow them in the unknown. As the man who performed the world’s first triple transplant – heart, lungs and liver, the UK’s first successful heart lung transplant and oversaw the UK’s first mechanical heart transplant – it’s fair to say he’s taken a few risks in his time.
It struck me that we can be so hooked on security, on everything working out, on not wanting anything to go wrong, that it can keep us locked in. Safe yes, but perhaps safe somewhere we’d rather not be…
… while on the other side MAY lie brilliance.
You can listen again here. Peter Bougourd, second cox on the RNLI boat that saved the Bonita was astounding to listen to too.
Went to the stupendous Gerhard Richter show at the Tate Modern this weekend. No, I hadn’t heard of him either! An arty knowledgeable friend of mine suggested we go along, so I did. As often happens in the unexpected way with these things Arty Friend was less than enthused with the show. I was blown away.
So much so that I sat down after to watch the Tate’s film about the curating of the exhibition which spanned 5 decades of the artist’s work. He was a quiet unassuming man and is often common with great talent, humble.
When asked when he knew he wanted to be a painter he said this ‘I didn’t. I was interested. So I painted. It felt good’
It really struck me, the simplicity and wisdom of what he’d said. Translated into career speak it goes something like this
You don’t need to know what you want to do. Follow what you’re interested in. Do it. If it feels good, you may be on to something…
I went to the Business Start Up show in Earls Court on Friday to stay abreast and get the scoop on things new and interesting for people wanting to go it alone. Got to say it was DIRE. For a start it was full of people in SUITS (thought a primary motivation to start your own business was NOT to have to wear a suit???!). Second, not an inspiring product or service in sight – mostly just a heap of grey businesses who seemed want to make money for the sake of money and nothing else.
Not for me.
BUT I did see ONE THING that I thought WAS inspired. There was a huge wall for people to stick their details on if they either wanted something or had something to offer. And on there was this:
Tremendous, I thought, for someone wanting to gain specific experience to:
A. Think laterally about where prospective employers may hang out
B. Focus on maximum need -Think about who would most likely need her – in this case an early stage business who would naturally have to be v focussed on marketing but with minimum resource to hire a pro
C. Turn up – It takes guts and initiative
D. Get Specific – Know what you want and what you can offer
E. Pitch – how else does anyone know you exist and have got something they may need
All good rules for a job hunt!
p.s And proof that even amongst a sea of grey suits is a post-it of promise
You CAN’T do it by THINKING. You’ve got to TASTE IT to. Get in, get out, talk to people, experience it, try things out, test the market, let things develop (they do).
I do love a Venn Diagram and this one comes courtesy of Louis Jones, age 16 (going on 21), who scribbled it out when I popped in to their place the other day. Remarkable foresight I thought for someone so young and what a GREAT way to be thinking already. Most of us have been trying to work out the middle bit all our lives!
Trouble is sometimes its tricky to understand what we’re really good at, and what we enjoy can often be a world apart from what we DO for a living. I’m convinced though that if we’re creative enough about it there is almost nothing that you can’t find a way to be paid to do. If in doubt there is a Head of Snowmen at Yeti International. Yes, there is. I rest my case.
ALL of these questions by the way (what you’re good at , what you’re into, how to turn that into a living) are tackled head on in my career change workshops. The next one is on Dec 3 and there’s 2 spaces left if you want to grab one and look that Venn Diagram straight in the eye. Details here
Career coach and Happy-Mondayer, Sonia Lakshman is a crusader for working happy. She believes we were all made for doing something that make us want to jump out of bed in the morning (maybe helped by a strong espresso!). She helps people figure out what really makes them come alive and to create work and a lifestyle that they’re really excited about.
