Tag Archives: passion

The Banjo Player: Steve Martin’s Diligence

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Most of us know Steve Martin as comic, actor, and occasional author and director. His role as banjo player, however, has been one of the most informative of his career.
In his 2007 interview with Charlie Rose, Steve recounted his experience learning to play the instrument.
“I remember getting my first banjo, and reading the book saying ‘this is how you play the C chord,’ and I put my fingers down to play the C chord and I couldn’t tell the difference.”

“But I told myself,” he continued, “just stick with this, just keep playing, and one day you’ll have been playing for 40 years, and at this point, you’ll know how to play.”

In 1960s California, the banjo was an interesting choice of instrument–there weren’t a lot of lessons being offered if any. Instead, Steve would take Earl Scruggs records and slow them down from 33 RPM to 16 RPM and then tune down the banjo to match the slower speed. He’d then tediously pick out the notes, one by one.

Later, when Steve began his stand up comedy career, he decided to make the banjo part of his routine.

“The reason I played [banjo] on stage,” he explained in an ABC interview, “is because…I thought it’s probably good to show the audience I can do something that looks hard, because this act looks like I’m just making it up.”

50 years after Steve began his attempt at playing banjo, he released his first album, “The Crow” in 2009 and it won a Grammy. He’s since been nominated for another. It’s not far off from the 40 years he’d told himself as a teenager it would take to learn how to play.

Steve’s memoir, Born Standing Up, defines diligence not just in terms of persistence, but also the integration of seemingly unrelated pursuits.
Steve was of course exagerrating when he projected it would take 40 years to get good at the banjo, and was obviously playing at a high-level after 5 – 10 years of taking up the instrument when he began using it in his act. But his resolution reflects a deeper truth: getting good at something is not to be taken lightly, and skill is to be developed over the course of a life.

Is it a Passion? 6 Steps to Find Out

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We interviewed 500 of the most successful people in the world about their passions — from Nelson Mandela and Richard Branson to Steve Jobs and Oprah Winfrey.
There are at least 6 ways they all expressed using to figure out whether they were truly passionate about something or not:
1. The Flow Experience: You lose all track of time…well, then you’re doing something that has triggered a passion. Where did that hour go?!
2. Irritation: It may seem odd to look at something uncomfortable as a window into passion, but it definitely can be. The reason something annoys you is because it violates something that you love, and you can often find a passion on the other side of irritation.  Think about it–there are so many things in the world that could upset you, but you choose very specific things to feel annoyed about. Take a look at your next irritation and see if there’s a rainbow on the other side of it.
3. Fatigue: If you’ll still do it when you’re tired, it’s a passion.
4. Failure: You bounce back from setbacks quickly when they happen to one of your passions. And you’ll probably scrap yourself off the payment and start doing it again despite failure!
5. Free:  I’m not suggesting that you work for free, but when you’re engaged in something you’re passionate about, you don’t need money to motivate you.  You’re probably putting in more effort than you’re charging for and you might even volunteer to do it.

 6. Bore People:  When you ask someone about their passion, they will rant and rave for much more time than is politically correct.  You’re at that cocktail party, and this guy is go on and on about his passion, and your eyes are glazing over…you’re looking at your watch and planning somehow to escape.  Well, that’s passion. You will do it despite the status it gives (or doesn’t give you!)

Your Passion Can Change the World

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Ge Wang, designer of Ocarina and Leaf Trombone: World Stage for the iPhone, and Magic Piano for the iPad, is using his passion for both music and technology to change the world. In fact, Ge views his revolutionary “apps” as having the potential to bring about a kind of social movement:

“In working with this new technology, there seems to be the ability to bring about a new kind of creative consciousness: with it, we can connect people around the world who didn’t know each other previously and may never have had the chance to know each other. Now they have the opportunity to connect through music and creativity.”

Ge believes firmly that the desire to create and express exists inside everyone: it’s about finding ways to draw it out.

“It just takes the right conditions to unlock people’s inherent creativity. I want people to feel that playing music is as easy as picking up the phone,” he said passionately.

The new social movement is not just about the here and now technology but rather about technology that’s connecting the world, Ge says. His work perfectly demonstrates that when you align your passion with a higher purpose, anything is possible.

Watch the video version of my interview with Ge Wang below–he demos both the Ocarina and the awesome Magic Piano iPad app!