Victim or survivor mindset “I think that there are two ways of looking at things that have happened to you. You can be a victim or you can be a survivor. Those are two very different cognitive positions. You can’t control what happens to you in either circumstance, but one is very powerful. You have overcome. One is you have had something happen to you and you are under that thing for quite some period of time. For me, if I hear someone and I hear that helplessness, one is that I want to reframe that experience. I want to tell a different story. I want them to tell a different narrative to themselves. I want them to rewrite that. In some ways, you want them to rewrite that narrative to survivorship and overcoming and what it took. You ask the right questions to get them to see that their own throughway in that case is based on their strength and ability. You want them to see those things rather than seeing the helplessness and powerlessness.”

Moving forward “When people are telling me that ‘I’m doing this because of my childhood’ or ‘I’m doing this because of this,’ I think you’re giving up some amount of power. You’re giving up a lot of power to something outside of yourself, and also, how you’re interpreting that event is not useful to you. There may be a lot of truth to the terrible things that have happened, but those terrible things—you have to shut the door at some point and say, “I am my own man or woman, and I move forward. … if you are somebody who uses other events as a reason to self-destruct, you’re ceding power… We see that even in companies—’I’m doing this because so-and-so made me angry. I’m doing this because…’—and you end up making some poor decisions and ceding power because of someone else. You’re willing to make a poor decision. You’re willing to give up. Sometimes people are willing to give up their entire future dreams because of X, Y, and Z, and it’s a tragedy. You want people to really understand the power they have to create their own lives at some point and that creation is not given to anyone else but you.”

“Art when really understood is a province of every human being. It is simply a question of doing things, anything well. It is not an outside extra thing. When the artist is alive in any person, whatever his kind of work may be, he becomes an inventive, searching, daring, self-expressing creature. He becomes interesting to other people. He disturbs, upsets, enlightens and he opens ways for better understanding. When those who are not artists are trying to close the book, he opens it. He shows there are still more pages possible.” I think that’s so telling for everything that you all are about to do, all the challenges you’re about to face. You’re going to be the ones that open the book.

“The world would stagnate without him and the world would be beautiful with him, for he is interesting to himself and he is interesting to others. He does not have to be a painter or a sculptor to be an artist. He can work in any medium. He simply has to find the gain in the work itself, not outside of it.” One of the biggest lessons that I’ve learned throughout my career is how important the work is, how important not just the end product is, but the actual craft, doing the work, inventing within the work

“The work of the art student is no light matter. Few have the courage and stamina to see it through. You have to make up your mind to be alone in many ways. We like sympathy as humans and we like to be in company. It is easier than going it alone, but alone one gets acquainted with himself, grows up and on, not stopping with the crowd. A cost to do this, if you succeed somewhat, you may have to pay for it as well as enjoy it for the rest of your life.” That’s something if you do something meaningful, you are going to have to pay for it in all the work, but at the same time, you will also be able to enjoy it for the rest of your life

“We are not here to do what has already been done.” Everyone in this room feels that we are not here to do what has already been done. “Know what the old masters did, know how they composed their pictures, but do not fall into the conventions they established. These conventions were right for them and they are wonderful. They made their language, you make yours. They can help you, all the past can help you.” I think in Silicon Valley and especially in technology, it’s so easy to fall in the footsteps of others, to do what they do because you think it’s the right way because you think they’ve had the success and you can copy that success, you have to find your own path, you have to find your own footsteps. “An art student must be a master from the beginning that is he must be the master of such as he has by being now master of such as he has, there’s promise that he will be a master in the future.”

I believe the great artists of the future will use fewer words, copy fewer things. Essays will be shorter in words and longer in meaning

What seeds are you planting today for next month? Next year?