As you may know I have a few godchildren. My oldest godchild lives with me for now, definitely while he is in college. We will see what happens after school. He wants a career in computers, video games and/or animae. Right now his grades in math really suck. I am trying to give him advice as to how he may want to pursue his dreams. Like other young folks his age he thinks I have no idea what I am talking about and he does his thing.
I recently thought about something else to tell him. Hey, I am in a position to share knowledge and experiences. It's one job I have as a godparent. The speech had to do with networking.
I still have goals and aspirations. One day I will have at least one comic book out. From there I will pitch my idea and create a live action series or cartoon based on my idea. I have had this dream for years. And I know I will reach some part of my goal.
School had and has nothing to do with my reaching my goals. Networking and talent are the keys. Nowadays it seems like who you know is just as important or even more important than what you know.
The biggest mistake I ever made in my professional life has to be my circle. I have a decent assortment of friends. However, the circle of people I should have been associating with is poor.
Over the years I developed a belief and some of you reading may be turned off by it. You don't always have a say so over the friends you meet. You have more to say about the circles you form. Ultimately your circles should be filled with folks moving in your direction with similar goals. This means chefs should hang out with chefs and not garbage men. That garbage man is still technically your friend but unless his wife is a chef you have nothing to gain by hanging out with him.
I have spent a good part of my life hanging around people who ultimately did nothing to enhance my life. They are not bad friends or awful people and I have no regrets in knowing them, but my professional life was not richer by knowing them. As a writer I had no business hanging with guards, bus drivers, librarians or cashiers. Not that there is anything wrong with what they do. We just had nothing to do with helping the other with our goals.
I have decided that artists should hang with artists, writers with writers, etc.
My godson doesn't have much of a circle of any kind. Nice in that he stays out of trouble. Not nice when it comes to his future. Especially if he doesn't have the best grade point average.
For me it feels like I have wasted a lot of time with my life. As I mentioned it is nice to have friends, but when you are trying to be a musician or an artist or even a writer it helps to connect with folks with similar interests. Had I connected with other writers who knows where I would be now
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