Fantastic speech. I can relate to every word he said. The part about the "mountain" was very familiar to me. I have had so many great job offers in my life and each time I had this little voice inside my head that asked me "is this moving you toward or away from your goal?" If the answer was "away", I declined the job or event.
And the Stephen King quote is something I have to remind myself of constantly. Several years ago when I was a street artist, a wonderful thing happened. I had been feeling like the "fraud police" would be coming to get me at any moment. Working on the street and not having a "real job" was beginning to create a lot of shame in my life and was affecting my self esteem. Then this guy came up who was interested in my art. He sat down and talked to me for a while before leaving with a piece. When he told me he was an attorney in New York, I felt that shame again. He started looking around my set-up and then looked me dead in the eye and said "this is really what you do everyday isn't it?" He said it in absolute awe. He told me about how he has two homes and collects sports cars and basically told me he was filthy rich. He went on to say how miserable he was. His eyes welled up with tears and said he would give up everything he had to switch places with me. From then on I looked at what I did differently.
And the making your own rules thing is huge too. I knew nothing about the art world, so I didn't know about any rules. I had people telling me that what I was doing would never work, but I followed my heart and did it anyway. Now I have people calling me up for interviews who want me to give advice on how to do things. Each time I'm absolutely stunned. Following your heart is so important and creating what your passionate about vital. I'm about to do something different in my art and had allowed that doubt to sneak in my mind, so I'm very glad you posted this as it got my thoughts back on track.
