Why is Never Too Late to Fulfill Your Dreams

THE GROOVE

Welcome to the 127th issue of The Groove.

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When it comes to creativity as the full expression of who you are, expiration dates don’t exist.

Whatever is in your head and heart, whether that is a desire to become a digital nomad, open a business, change careers, or simply be successful at something, it can materialize at any time, especially if you allow it.

The uniqueness in your ideas, gathered through your life experience, cannot be replicated by anyone. Because of that, those nagging desires and persistent insights that seem to come out of nowhere, directing you towards what you long to be, do, or have, should never be ignored.

Following nudges and desires was a decisive aspect in the life of German-born painter Richard Lindner, who came of age in Weimar Germany, went into exile in France in 1933 when Hitler rose to power and was able to escape to the United States in 1941.

Madeleine L'Engle, the author of A Wrinkle In Time and its follow-up A Wind in the Door, wrote in the latter, “Don't try to comprehend with your mind. Your minds are very limited. Use your intuition.” How simple yet wise is that?

As a young man, Lindner trained for a career as a concert pianist. During his early 20s he began to concertize and was hailed as a highly promising talent. At the age of 24, he moved to Munich. By chance (or not) he ran into an old schoolmate, a student of painting at the Munich Academy who invited Lindner to visit the school.

What came next was the first of several major epiphanies in Lindner’s life, as he recalls: “When I entered that beautiful old building I was transported. It was like a dream world! Then and there I resolved to stop being a pianist. The fact is, I couldn't stand the pressures of concertizing. I suppose if I had been a real musician I would never have stopped. But I gave up music and applied for entrance at the academy. I was accepted and stayed there for three years. I became a master student.” This man wasn’t using his mind; he was acting from his intuition.

Our sixth sense is always working for us. But sometimes we ignore it or we fear it. How many things in our lives could be easier, or at least attainable, if we’d be willing to listen to our intuition more, the way Lindner did?

Once upon a time, I felt stuck in a rut and hired a wonderful coach who told me: “you have to trust that you didn’t come all the way to where you are to stay stuck there.”

She was helping me become aware that all my experiences, all the accumulation of good and bad things, were in my service to propel me forward, if only I trusted that I could. I didn’t get unstuck immediately, but those words became a compass for me and I kept working, while believing that sooner or later I would cross to the other side. Eventually, I did.

Lindner moved to New York in 1941, with basically nothing. While he longed to be a painter, there was no real art scene in the city at the time - very few galleries existed and he was perceived as an outsider by the other artists. In short: why make it harder? He could still be an artist by being an illustrator and graphic designer, and so he made a comfortable living by working for Vogue, Fortune and Harper's Bazaar.

Having already switched gears from music to visual arts, as well as continents from the dire state of Europe during WWII to the prosperous America of the 1940s, Lindner trusted that he was doing the right thing. The silver lining? He had completely fallen in love with New York and felt the city stimulating all his senses.

He was not only using all this sensual arousal in his day-to-day life, but he was also filing ideas in his mental cabinet for what was to come.

While the hustle and bustle of New York were vital to Lindner’s inspiration, his job as a designer was not. He was really good at it, but he got bored and the itch to be a full-time painter came back ferociously.

In 1950, at the age of 49, he decided he needed time for himself. Lindner felt that the vast repertory of experiences he had accumulated needed to be let out, and he decided to start painting canvases again, taking jobs as a professor at Pratt Institute and at Yale so he could use his spare time, summers and holidays to paint.

And so it happened that the real genius of Richard Lindner arrived for all the world to see when he was in his mid-50s. With a futuristic aesthetic, color and composition that in hindsight was celebrated as a precursor to pop art, Lindner painted empowered women wearing bold outfits and even bolder makeups, crime scenes, underground characters, busy streets and the beautiful cacophony of the New York experience.

The dreams that Lindner had in his 20s were fulfilled 30 years later, when the time was right. After decades of following his clues and trusting his intuition.

Even though he had started before pop caught fire, thanks to its advent, Lindner became world famous. Galleries, collectors, curators and critics recognized that nobody painted like him. His work had a bit of Cubism, Surrealism, American mass culture, typography and the world of advertising, which he intimately knew through his previous job.

From then on, Lindner enjoyed massive success. In his lifetime, he had retrospectives in documenta IV, Kassel, the University of California at Berkeley, the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, the Musée National d’art Moderne, Paris, which then traveled to Rotterdam, Düsseldorf, Zurich, Nuremberg, and Vienna.

Lindner was equally skilled with his brush as he was following his insights, he never put a deadline to attaining his dreams, he moved along the circumstances with certain confidence, knowing that the next step was the right one to take. He didn’t give up when things didn’t happen in a specific timetable, because sometimes, they don’t have to.

Usually, the only person standing between your dreams and their fulfillment is you.

Pivoting, adjusting courses, pursuing a new goal or pushing through the one that you long to have are all doable human things, even if the path isn’t easy. Because everything that is worth having takes work, otherwise we wouldn’t fully appreciate it.

JUMPSTART: IGNITE YOUR CREATIVITY FOR PROFIT, INNOVATION, AND REINVENTION

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HOW CREATIVITY RULES THE WORLD

My book was chosen by the Next Big Idea Club as one of the top books of creativity!

Have you gotten yours yet? If you enjoy this newsletter you will love my book!

How Creativity Rules The World is filled with practical tools that will propel and guide you to help you get any project from an idea to a concrete reality.

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TEDX TALK

Have you already watched my TEDx Talk: “NFTs, Graffiti and Sedition: How Artists Invent The Future”?

I share three lessons I have learned from artists that always work for anyone in their careers. Watch it here.

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