30 Days Of Genius Blog: LeVar Burton
Roots. Reading Rainbow. Star Trek The Next Generation.
Does anyone NOT know who LeVar Burton is? Starring in three iconic roles, Mr. Burton has solidified himself as one of the icons of the last two generations of television and cinema. He shares his keys to survival and success over 4 decades in one of the world’s most tumultuous job markets, Los Angeles.
I have taken his interview on 30 Days of Genius with Chase Jarvis, extracted the information, and used it to answer common questions by readers just like you, who are looking to take their lives to the next level, or at least a different level than the one they are on.
Please enjoy.
How Do You Deal With Life’s Ups and Downs?
This is something that I struggled with early in my career. Keep in mind, Roots was my first featured role. I went from 0 to 100, basically overnight. The fame, the notoriety. It was great, but overwhelming. I had to ask myself, where do you go when you start at the top?
What saved me was the fact that I was passionate about acting. I didn’t get in to it to be famous. I wasn’t drawn by the glitz and glam of Hollywood. I was drawn to the art. I loved it. I still love it.
My advice, follow your passion.
Not only is it the key to your happiness, it will also give you a place to return to when you feel lost, when you need to reconnect with yourself, recalibrate.
Once you are locked in to your passion, you are headed in the right direction.
Now that you are headed in the right direction, you need to be open and aware to what comes next, recognize your opportunities, and then maximize them. Find a way to do your best work with each opportunity you come across. Identify where you can be most effective, and attack. You can never predict the end of a book in the first chapter, so you keep pushing, keep grinding, and keep hustling.
Passion allows you to be capable of things you didn’t think you were capable of.
Listen to yourself, ask yourself, what am I passionate about? What would I do for free?
To have success in the long term, you need to be on the right path and be honest with yourself.
We can be very disingenuous with ourselves. We lie to ourselves all the time. We are our own worst enemies. Be brutally honest with yourself. Ask yourself the tough questions: are you doing everything you say you are? Are you doing everything you should? If not, you need to adjust, you need to change. Give yourself time in the mirror and go deep.
Besides self-talk and introspection, I surrounded myself with a group of friends that I really trusted. They gave me feedback and allowed for my personal insights to go even deeper. It is vital to surround yourself with people that can also do that for you.
There were periods in my career when I was having a difficult time getting jobs. If it wasn’t for introspection, if it weren’t for my friends, I am not sure how long it would have taken me to reconnect with my passion, gain the proper perspective, and start working consistently again. I can honestly tell you that the second I reconnected with my passion, the art, and I stopped looking at myself, and what I had done, the doors flew wide open. It all started with a shift in mindset. That shift allowed me to get out of my own way, and maximize who I really was.
Getting through the tough times, or the downs, is possible because of your passion. If you are not passionate about your craft, when it gets hard, and it will get hard, it is difficult to keep going. It takes energy and presence to make things happen. I don’t see how you can be either of those things without passion.
Quotes
“I feel like I have learned more from my failures in life than my successes.”
“I became my own advocate.”
“Your hustle is a sign of the degree of your passion.”
“That which we imagine, we create.”
LeVar Burton Links
Chase Jarvis Links
Joey Links
