I have posted a couple blogs on John Maxwell’s book Talent is Never Enough. Last February, I posted the 13 Choices a person can make to maximize his or her talent. In June, I presented the premise that People Don’t Pay For Average also from the book.

A few days ago, I ran across a post by Chris Sonksen, based on principles that former Ohio State football coach Jim Tressel gives his team prior to every season.  Here’s what Chris has to say about John Maxwell’s book…

“The premise of the book is that it takes more than talent to be a “Talent Plus” person. That talent (although it is great) is not enough. There are lots of people in life who have the talent but seem to waste it. Iʼm sure youʼve met a few people and said, “Theyʼre so talented” but they donʼt seem to get very far. The reason is that it takes more then talent to get to the top of your game.

Something caught my eye in the introduction of the book. It talked about how the coach of the Ohio State Football Team has a manual he gives to all his players. In the manual is a section called “Things that do not require talent.” What a simple yet profound thought.

There are lots of things in life that will help you excel that have nothing to do with talent. You see most people discount themselves for not being as talented as the next person. But what truly puts you at the top of the game is not talent alone, itʼs the things that donʼt require talent that will get you there.

Here is my list of things that do not require talent:

1. Passion – Passion will take you a long way, get you through closed doors and sustain you longer than the next person and it does not require talent.
2. Initiative – You will not get very far without initiative. It is the one thing that will push you further then you have ever been before. Initiative ignites talent and the absence of initiative defuses it.
3. Teachability – Often a talented person will not listen to those around them because they rely so strongly on their talent. This makes them unteachable. You donʼt have to have talent to be teachable, you just have to have a desire to be the best you can possibly be. Be open to teaching, correction and discipline, it will separate you from the pack.
4. Attitude – The right attitude doesnʼt cost anything and requires no specific skill, yet it can literally set the course for your life and for your work. Have a winning attitude it cost nothing but pays back great dividends.
5. Courage – The courage to act, to take risk, to move forward and to step out has nothing to do with your skill set or talent, it has to do with a choice. Ask yourself what kind of person youʼll be, courageous or cowardly.
6. Focus – People who are focused get things done. Talent will not get it done for you, talent will not help you complete a task or mission, but focus (a non-talent characteristic) is what will help you get it done and then some.

Work on these 6 qualities that do not require talent. Begin to mature them in your life and in the life of your team. Iʼm sure youʼre a talented person, but to be a Talent Plus person you must be willing to do the things that “do not require talent.”

“The key choices you make – apart from the natural talent you already have, will set you apart from others who have talent alone.”

Several weeks ago, I wrote about a friend who told me how important having “an edge” [performing at a high professional level] was for him to stay at the top of his game, as an actor/singer in Hollywood. He told me that if he had even one bad day during a recording session or on stage, his career and reputation would suffer. If he had two bad days, his 20-year career might be over.

A few days ago, I posed the question about “finding an edge” to Annie Wolaver Dupree, of the Annie Moses Band [anniemosesband.com] - a string ensemble that blends fiddle, jazz, and classical influences with soaring, folk-inspired vocals to create a sound that is both refreshing and familiar.

Annie is a Julliard trained violinist, as well as a talented vocalist, who performs at an incredibly high musical level every night she is on stage. Here’s what Annie had to say about “finding an edge” when I interviewed her for my book, Your Creative Drive.

“To me the edge is about two things: it’s all about the discipline of performing. Most people learn to be the best at practicing, and become the best in the world, but we never practice performing. And those two things are separate.

With performing, everything has to happen right at once, and a performance is something that is free analyzation. When you perform there is no looking back. There is no turning around – you can’t be the performer and the audience – you’re only the performer.

It’s like you’re writing on a blackboard and it’s being erased behind you. That’s the way performing is. And yet most of the time, we rarely force ourselves into that environment and instead we’re always in practice mode.

Practice mode is where you play a little bit. Then you stop and think about it. You analyze and turn around the little phrases to make them the best they can be. There is a place for that kind of practice, but there is a place where you say, “OK, this is where I am demanding something of myself, and everything has to happen correct and right at once."

And the people who can do that are the people who have the edge. The people who can’t are the people who struggle. You won’t have the A+ performance every night, but you can get to where you have them most nights.

And when you do…that’s when you have a career.”

In the 2007 movie The Bucket List, blue-collar mechanic Carter Chambers (played by Morgan Freeman) and billionaire hospital magnate Edward Cole (played by Jack Nicholson) meet for the first time in the hospital after both have been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer.

Although Nicholson is reluctant to share a room with Freeman, complaining that he "looks half-dead already," they become friends as they undergo cancer treatment.

Early in the film, Morgan Freeman begins writing a "bucket list" of things he wants to do before he "kicks the bucket" (or dies). After hearing he has less than a year, Freeman wads his list up and tosses it on the floor where Nicholson finds it and offers to finance a trip around the world to do everything on the list.

The movie got me thinking about making a bucket list of my own. Only my list would be a Creative Bucket List of  the top five creative things I would like to do before I die.

Here’s my Top 5 Creative Bucket List:

1. Work with director Tony Scott on an action-adventure film.
2. Direct an episode of American Idol or Dancing With The Stars.
3. Create an Academy Award-winning project that impacts the world.
4. Sing on a Tony Bennett Special produced by Rob Marshall.
5. Become a New York Times best-selling author.

Take out a piece of paper and a pencil and write out your own Creative Bucket List. Then, no matter how out-of-this-world your list is, send it to someone who shares and supports your dreams.

And maybe - as Jimmeny Cricket once sang to Pinocchio - When you wish upon a star/Makes no difference who you are/Anything your heart desires/Will come to you!

One of the most prolific writer-producers in Hollywood history passed away a few days ago of cancer. His name was Stephen J. Cannell, and his body of work is amazing. In spite of living with dyslexia, he went on to write more primetime television shows than any person on the planet. His discipline was to get up at 3:30 am and write for several hours every day. To him, writing was what he loved to do most.

In his honor, here are “Stephen J. Cannell’s Footnotes to Success” as published in the September issue of Success Magazine.

1. Lighten up. Don’t take yourself so seriously that you can’t grow.
2. You can create business and opportunity for yourself if you’re willing to bet on yourself.
3. Pour energy into your career and it will make a difference.
4. When you hire somebody, make sure they share your emotional philosophy and your human philosophy.
5. It’s better to be underpaid. You won’t be fired when times are bad.
6. Finish what you start. Broken manuscripts teach you nothing.
7. Avoid saying no to an idea when you’re in the room. Always bring it back to the den and kick it around before you throw it out in the sand.
8. Hire people who are better than you, [it’s] the secret to being successful.
9. Don’t play it safe. Don’t just throw your fastball. Get out there and really mix it up.
10. The joy must be in the doing. If you’re focused on awards or money, you’re in the wrong place.
11. Decide what you want to do. Don’t let other people grade your paper.
12. Root for your friends.
13. Refuse to fail. Keep smiling and keep punching. Don’t quit on your dream.

“Not everyone’s a natural conversationalist. In fact, 93 percent of us self-identify as shy," says Susan RoAne, known as The Mingling Maven and best-selling author of How to Work a Room. Here are tips for entering a room of strangers and effectively working the room:

1. When entering a room, head for the dessert table. People who are contemplating calories will always talk to you.
   
2. Don’t approach two people in a conversation; opt for three or four people. It’s an easier number to approach and reduces the chance you’re interrupting a private or sensitive conversation.
3. Looking for an “in” to a conversation? Say, “Excuse me, may I join you?” It’s an elegant way of inserting yourself and no one’s ever said no.
4. Wear something people can connect with. Madeleine Albright always wore beautiful broaches, so people would start conversations about that.

Before a social gathering, catch up with what your friends are doing on Facebook. With this information, you can easily strike up a conversation about mutual interests or their latest vacation. Something easy like, “I saw your vacation photos on Facebook—where in Mexico was that?” is a great way to get them talking about their favorite topic—themselves.

As I’ve mentioned in my earlier blogs, I have made a commitment to stretch myself professionally. One of the ways I decided to do that is to take classes to learn how to become a voice actor. So, every Wednesday afternoon, I drive up to Los Angeles and spend time in the booth working on technique. My goal is not only to learn how to use my voice on my own projects, but to book other freelance jobs as well.

Recently, I ran across an article by producer Marc Cashman outlining the qualities he believes a voice actor needs to possess to be successful in the business. Due to length, I’ve condensed his article by focusing on the author’s key comments for each trait.

“Directors look for key indicators in an actor that tell them whether that actor can perform flawlessly in a session, particularly in a phone-patch session, where anywhere from one to ten or more clients will be hanging on every word. The actor who has all of these abilities will be working a lot.

The specific traits that make for an in-demand VO actor are:

1. Consistency. You must be dependable and able to deliver what everyone is looking for.
2. Taking Direction. Listen carefully to what the director and/or client are saying. And never argue with direction, even if you think it is wrong.
3. Professional Behavior. From the moment you enter the studio door to the moment you exit, comporting yourself as a professional is critical.
4. Readiness. Are you physically, mentally and emotionally prepared to give everyone involved a stellar performance in a sometimes stressful and compressed amount of time?
5. Talent. A standout talent makes the copy their own, [and] infuses it with an energy and interpretation, in a way that makes the producer say: “Yes! You nailed it.”

How many of these 5 traits do you possess?

If you’re not getting booked for jobs, it’s time for some serious self-evaluation to help you become a true creative professional! 

“Throughout the years, I’ve discovered that the people who win in life always have goals. I’ve met many millionaires, even billionaires, and I’ve seldom spoken with any who got to where they are without setting goals. Without goals, it’s hard to know what you’re aiming at.

All goals begin with a dream. Now it’s good to have a dream, but I meet a lot of people who have been praying about their dream for 20 years and have done nothing about it. Everybody has a great idea. But people who put their great ideas to work are the ones who end up being millionaires.

The next step for your dream is to take it from the dream stage, which is a generalized overall concept, down to a vision. Next, to determine where the finish line is, break your vision down into specific goals.

For your vision and goals to have long-term positive impact, they must include several areas of your life. You must have career goals, financial goals, spiritual goals, physical goals, intellectual goals, family goals and social goals. If you leave one of these areas out, you have what’s known as a flat tire. Your life will be out of balance and the ride won’t be as smooth.

In order for your goals to work, they must:

• Be Specific. If you are going to win, your goals have to be specific. Do not have general concepts. Break everything down and get defined. It’s not specific enough if you can’t tell it occurred.
• Be Measurable. It’s easy to set measurable and quantifiable goals in areas like sales. Things that are more cultural in your life, where you’re shifting philosophy in your career or family, are a little harder to measure, but there are ways. Create a baseline and develop a process to measure where you are now and where you are going from there.
• Be Yours. We are forever, in our culture, letting someone else set our goals. You cannot let someone else set your goals for you. The goals have to be your goals— not your boss’s, not your spouse’s and not the person who came before you. They’re yours and you have to have ownership in them or you won’t execute them. There is no energy in other people’s goals. There is only energy in what is inside of you.
• Have a Time Limit. How much time do you have to make it happen? If you don’t set a time limit, you will not push yourself. When you have a time limit you stay focused and on track.
• Be in Writing. When you write these things down, they’re dangerous. A written goal is much more powerful than a goal you simply set in your head and don’t write down to hold yourself accountable. So, be careful what you write down because there is a good chance it will happen.”

Don’t get discouraged if your goals aren’t accomplished in the exact way and down to the second according to your original plan. Be sure to talk with those around you who have achieved great goals they set for themselves. Find out what they did to overcome their intimidating obstacles and what they learned throughout the process. Some flexibility is definitely needed, but as long as you are focused on the end goal and are taking proactive steps toward accomplishing it, you are an achiever and on your way to great things.

1. Take creative projects to a new level. Ten days later, I started learning Avid and editing my own projects. I also made a commitment to bring fresh new ideas to every media assignment, and never settle for mediocre. 
   
2. Develop online possibilities. I began writing copy for my new webpage, and found a web designer to create a custom website. I couldn’t just talk about being creative if my website wasn’t creative. My business cards, letterhead, and email bug are extensions of my website…and brand. 
   
3. Develop new publicity that gets people talking. My next step was logging on Twitter and Facebook, to read posts from friends in the arts – and share what I was learning on my own creative journey. Then I started writing this blog, and inviting my network to read it and share their comments.
   
4. Get you book(s) in process and think about a writing career. For years I had written copy for television, but never for publication. So I set up a meeting with Phil and shared my ideas about writing a book on creativity. With his encouragement, I began researching and writing, Your Creative Drive.