Creativity, Spirituality, and Making a Buck by David Nichtern

Author:David Nichtern
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wisdom Publications

Of the two witnesses, take the principal one.

Rather than trying to impress, to gain approval, or to accommodate—rather than basing our actions on how we think others see us—we’re willing to keep our own counsel as to what to cultivate and what to avoid.

15

Everybody Wants to Be Appreciated. Appreciate Them!

Everyone responds to kindness.

—RICHARD GERE

COMPOSING AND PRODUCING music has been my principal livelihood for most of my adult life. What a challenging way to pay the bills! It really takes dedication and effort to make a living as a musician year after year. So whenever I see a person on the subway playing a violin or alto sax, I offer an inner bow to that brave warrior and drop at least a buck (talk about “making a buck”!) or more into their hat or case.

Everybody wants to be appreciated for their contribution; everybody deserves some kind of praise and support for their efforts. We’re not talking about effusive, unearned praise with some kind of sugar coating and happy face attached. We’re talking about appreciating those people who work with us and work for us.

As a composer and musician, I’ve had many bosses over many years. Some have been exceptional and generous, some reasonable, some difficult, and some outright abusive.

It’s important to note that the quality of a leader or artist’s work isn’t necessarily dependent on their qualities as a human being. In fact, sometimes there seems to be an inverse proportion between the quality of an artist’s work and their benevolence and good qualities as an employer—or as a human being. This paradigm can hold true for many famous business and government leaders as well.

But the quality of an artist or businessperson’s work is also not dependent on them being a slave driver, a sociopathic narcissist, or a nasty person. We’ll be talking about creativity in its own right later on in our discussion. All we’re saying here is that being wildly creative and being a good employer or friend each have their own independent basis, and we can be both.

It’s fine to negotiate skillfully, to protect our interests, to have very high standards for our work and the work of others, to offer constructive criticism, to be direct and straightforward (hopefully skillfully), etc. But it’s not OK to abuse our coworkers, employees, friends, lovers, family members, etc. It is important for us to appreciate them and praise them appropriately—to recognize their good qualities and efforts, and actually express our awareness of them in word and deed.

People are part of the animal kingdom, of course, but we bloom like flowers when we receive praise and support for our efforts.

OK . . . let’s stay with our making-a-buck world for now—let’s go to your workbook.

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