The Power of the Human Mind

Much of my art these last few years has been about a personal discovery of sorts - and that is regarding the power of the human mind.  Of course we've always known there are many people out there with great minds doing incredible things.  And, if you're like me, you may wonder how do some people do so many amazing things - and why does it seem so easy for some and so difficult for others.  My personal experience had been wondering why it's been so difficult to reach my childhood dream of being a full time artist.  It's funny seeing my son collect baseball cards or follow the careers of soccer players and I realize when I was his age I would idolize Van Gogh, think about why Picasso painted the way he did - when I was at museums all I wanted to do was get as close as I could to a painting to see how it was made and would imagine myself doing the brush strokes.  I mean, of course like my son, I would do the old 'here I am, at the plate, two on, two outs, bottom of the ninth, count is full - oh my, there it is - a three run homer!'  But I realize also how I would imagine making paintings just as vividly.  Yet many years had gone by and still even though I had worked very hard I was not at my dream.  At the nadir of my frustration I had stumbled upon the work of Napoleon Hill offered by Nightingale-Conant and I started to realize that any 'perceived' limits were largely some function of how I 'thought' about those limits.  If you are an artist you might relate to the these thoughts 'They only take young artists for their shows,' 'They only take artists with degrees from Yale,' 'Only artists who sacrifice everything make it anywhere,' 'An artist's life is a one of suffering,' 'You can't raise a family and be an artist' - or fill in the blanks - and I realized also how many times the word 'they' would come up in my thoughts - and, if you're like me, you realize you don't really know who 'they' are but isn't it funny how much we know about how 'they' think?  This personal discovery was really a turning point for me and that was about two years ago -  and each day I continue to use the things I learned from the material on actually 'using' my mind in a proactive, positively visualizing way.  I am very excited to put two of the cd's (of the many I have listened to over the last two years) - The Science of Personal Achievement and The Einstein Factor - as links on my website (check to the right and scroll down).  If you've ever felt frustration or that life could and should be more - check this out.