Success, failure and the drive to keep creating | Elizabeth Gilbert
Summary
TLDRIn this inspiring speech, the author of 'Eat, Pray, Love' candidly discusses the challenges of following up a bestseller and the importance of finding one's 'home'—the passion that drives creativity beyond the fear of failure or the allure of success. She emphasizes the need to return to this 'home' to ensure resilience in the face of both personal and professional upheavals, advocating for a relentless dedication to the work itself, regardless of the outcome.
Takeaways
- 🎭 The speaker identifies as the author of 'Eat, Pray, Love', which was a significant turning point in her career.
- 🚫 She faced the challenge of meeting expectations after the success of 'Eat, Pray, Love', fearing both fans and critics would be disappointed with her next work.
- 🏠 The concept of 'home' is central to the speaker's approach to writing, representing a place of comfort and dedication beyond personal ego.
- 📚 The speaker's early career was filled with rejection, but she persisted by returning to her love of writing as her 'home'.
- 🔄 Despite the stark differences in experiences, the speaker found a psychological connection between failure and success, both disorienting and distant from one's self.
- 🌌 Success and failure are both extremes that can distance one from their sense of self, with the subconscious unable to discern the difference between the two.
- 🔑 The remedy for both failure and success is to find one's way back 'home', which is a metaphor for returning to what one loves most.
- 📖 The speaker emphasizes that writing is her 'home', and she returned to it after the overwhelming success of 'Eat, Pray, Love'.
- 💣 The follow-up book to 'Eat, Pray, Love' did not achieve the same success, but the speaker was unfazed because she had rediscovered her passion for writing.
- 🛠️ The speaker encourages finding and returning to one's 'home', a place of dedication and love, regardless of external outcomes.
- 🔗 The speaker promises that by staying true to one's 'home', one can remain safe from the unpredictability of life's outcomes.
Q & A
What significant event in the author's life is mentioned at the beginning of the script?
-The author was approached by two women at JFK Airport who recognized her as the person behind 'Eat, Pray, Love'.
How did the success of 'Eat, Pray, Love' impact the author's perspective on writing another book?
-The success of 'Eat, Pray, Love' put the author in a difficult position, as she felt that whatever she wrote next would disappoint some readers, either because it wasn't the same as 'Eat, Pray, Love' or because it confirmed her continued existence as an author.
What did the author consider doing instead of writing after the success of 'Eat, Pray, Love'?
-The author considered quitting writing and moving to the country to raise corgis due to the pressure of following up on the success of 'Eat, Pray, Love'.
What personal realization helped the author to continue writing despite the fear of failure or disappointment?
-The author realized that she needed to find inspiration to write the next book regardless of its outcome, drawing from lessons she learned about creativity surviving failure earlier in her life.
What was the author's initial dream and how did she pursue it?
-The author's initial dream was to become a writer, and she pursued it by writing throughout her childhood and adolescence, sending stories to The New Yorker, and continuing to write and try to get published after college while working as a diner waitress.
How did the author cope with the constant rejection she faced for almost six years?
-The author coped with rejection by finding resolve in returning to the work of writing, viewing it as her home and loving it more than she hated failing at it.
What unexpected connection did the author discover between failure and success in relation to her subconscious?
-The author discovered that her subconscious could not discern the difference between the emotional impact of great failure and great success, only recognizing the distance she had been flung from her normal self.
What is the 'home' the author refers to in the context of finding one's passion or purpose?
-The 'home' the author refers to is whatever one loves more than oneself, which could be creativity, family, invention, adventure, faith, service, or any other devotion that makes the results inconsequential.
How did the author manage to publish the follow-up to 'Eat, Pray, Love' despite the fear of failure?
-The author managed to publish the follow-up by returning to her 'home' of writing, focusing on the devotion of writing itself rather than the outcome.
What was the reception of the author's book after 'Eat, Pray, Love', and how did she feel about it?
-The follow-up book to 'Eat, Pray, Love' bombed, but the author was fine with it, feeling bulletproof because she had returned to writing out of devotion.
What advice does the author give for dealing with great success or failure?
-The author advises to identify the thing one loves most, build one's 'home' on top of it, and fight one's way back to that home through diligence, devotion, and performing the tasks that love calls forth, regardless of the outcome.
Outlines
📚 The Struggle and Success of a Writer
The speaker shares a personal anecdote about being recognized for her book 'Eat, Pray, Love' at JFK Airport, which became a significant turning point in her career. She reflects on the challenges of following up such a successful work, acknowledging the inevitable disappointment from both fans and critics. The author discusses the fear of failure and the pressure of maintaining success, which led her to consider quitting writing altogether. However, she emphasizes the importance of finding inspiration despite the odds and drawing from past experiences of overcoming failure. The speaker's love for writing is portrayed as her 'home,' a place of solace and dedication, which she ultimately returns to in order to continue her craft.
🏠 Finding One's True Home in Passion
Continuing from her previous narrative, the author delves into the psychological parallels between failure and success, both of which can dislocate one from their sense of self. She likens the experience to being catapulted into unfamiliar territory, whether it be the darkness of disappointment or the blinding light of fame. The key to navigating these extremes, she suggests, is to find one's 'home,' a passion or pursuit that one loves more than oneself. The author shares her journey of returning to writing after the tumultuous experience with 'Eat, Pray, Love,' and how the commercial failure of her subsequent book did not deter her because she had reconnected with her love for the craft itself. She encourages the audience to identify and build their lives around what they love most, advocating for dedication and perseverance in the face of life's unpredictable outcomes.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Eat, Pray, Love
💡Inspiration
💡Failure
💡Success
💡Corgis
💡Vocation
💡Psyche
💡Devotion
💡Outcome
💡Home
💡Dedication
Highlights
Author's identity strongly associated with 'Eat, Pray, Love', leading to pressure for future works.
The challenge of pleasing readers after massive success with 'Eat, Pray, Love'.
Consideration of quitting writing due to the fear of disappointing readers.
The importance of finding inspiration despite inevitable negative outcomes.
Learning from past failures to fuel creativity and overcome success.
A lifelong aspiration to be a writer and early struggles with rejection.
The psychological connection between experiencing failure and success.
The subconscious inability to discern the difference between failure and success.
The concept of 'home' as a source of devotion and resilience in the face of outcomes.
The idea that 'home' is what you love more than yourself, providing safety from external judgments.
The author's realization of needing to return to writing after the success of 'Eat, Pray, Love'.
The publication and reception of the follow-up book to 'Eat, Pray, Love'.
The liberating feeling of being bulletproof from the impact of book sales due to dedication.
Continuing to write regardless of success or failure, anchored by the love of writing.
The advice to identify and build one's life around the thing they love most.
The importance of diligently performing tasks that stem from love, regardless of outcomes.
The reassurance that finding and staying true to one's 'home' will lead to overall well-being.
Transcripts
So, a few years ago I was at JFK Airport
about to get on a flight,
when I was approached by two women
who I do not think would be insulted
to hear themselves described
as tiny old tough-talking Italian-American broads.
The taller one, who is like up here,
she comes marching up to me, and she goes,
"Honey, I gotta ask you something.
You got something to do with that whole
'Eat, Pray, Love' thing that's been going on lately?"
And I said, "Yes, I did."
And she smacks her friend and she goes,
"See, I told you, I said, that's that girl.
That's that girl who wrote that book
based on that movie."
(Laughter)
So that's who I am.
And believe me, I'm extremely grateful to be that person,
because that whole "Eat, Pray, Love" thing
was a huge break for me.
But it also left me in a really tricky position
moving forward as an author
trying to figure out how in the world
I was ever going to write a book again
that would ever please anybody,
because I knew well in advance
that all of those people who had adored "Eat, Pray, Love"
were going to be incredibly disappointed
in whatever I wrote next
because it wasn't going to be "Eat, Pray, Love,"
and all of those people who had hated "Eat, Pray, Love"
were going to be incredibly disappointed
in whatever I wrote next
because it would provide evidence that I still lived.
So I knew that I had no way to win,
and knowing that I had no way to win
made me seriously consider for a while
just quitting the game
and moving to the country to raise corgis.
But if I had done that, if I had given up writing,
I would have lost my beloved vocation,
so I knew that the task was that I had to find
some way to gin up the inspiration
to write the next book
regardless of its inevitable negative outcome.
In other words, I had to find a way to make sure
that my creativity survived its own success.
And I did, in the end, find that inspiration,
but I found it in the most unlikely
and unexpected place.
I found it in lessons that I had learned earlier in life
about how creativity can survive its own failure.
So just to back up and explain,
the only thing I have ever wanted to be
for my whole life was a writer.
I wrote all through childhood, all through adolescence,
by the time I was a teenager I was sending
my very bad stories to The New Yorker,
hoping to be discovered.
After college, I got a job as a diner waitress,
kept working, kept writing,
kept trying really hard to get published,
and failing at it.
I failed at getting published
for almost six years.
So for almost six years, every single day,
I had nothing but rejection letters
waiting for me in my mailbox.
And it was devastating every single time,
and every single time, I had to ask myself
if I should just quit while I was behind
and give up and spare myself this pain.
But then I would find my resolve,
and always in the same way,
by saying, "I'm not going to quit,
I'm going home."
And you have to understand that for me,
going home did not mean returning to my family's farm.
For me, going home
meant returning to the work of writing
because writing was my home,
because I loved writing more than I hated failing at writing,
which is to say that I loved writing
more than I loved my own ego,
which is ultimately to say
that I loved writing more than I loved myself.
And that's how I pushed through it.
But the weird thing is that 20 years later,
during the crazy ride of "Eat, Pray, Love,"
I found myself identifying all over again
with that unpublished young diner waitress
who I used to be, thinking about her constantly,
and feeling like I was her again,
which made no rational sense whatsoever
because our lives could not have been more different.
She had failed constantly.
I had succeeded beyond my wildest expectation.
We had nothing in common.
Why did I suddenly feel like I was her all over again?
And it was only when I was trying to unthread that
that I finally began to comprehend
the strange and unlikely psychological connection
in our lives between the way we experience great failure
and the way we experience great success.
So think of it like this:
For most of your life, you live out your existence
here in the middle of the chain of human experience
where everything is normal and reassuring and regular,
but failure catapults you abruptly way out over here
into the blinding darkness of disappointment.
Success catapults you just as abruptly but just as far
way out over here
into the equally blinding glare
of fame and recognition and praise.
And one of these fates
is objectively seen by the world as bad,
and the other one is objectively seen by the world as good,
but your subconscious is completely incapable
of discerning the difference between bad and good.
The only thing that it is capable of feeling
is the absolute value of this emotional equation,
the exact distance that you have been flung
from yourself.
And there's a real equal danger in both cases
of getting lost out there
in the hinterlands of the psyche.
But in both cases, it turns out that there is
also the same remedy for self-restoration,
and that is that you have got to find your way back home again
as swiftly and smoothly as you can,
and if you're wondering what your home is,
here's a hint:
Your home is whatever in this world you love
more than you love yourself.
So that might be creativity, it might be family,
it might be invention, adventure,
faith, service, it might be raising corgis,
I don't know, your home is that thing
to which you can dedicate your energies
with such singular devotion
that the ultimate results become inconsequential.
For me, that home has always been writing.
So after the weird, disorienting success
that I went through with "Eat, Pray, Love,"
I realized that all I had to do was exactly
the same thing that I used to have to do all the time
when I was an equally disoriented failure.
I had to get my ass back to work,
and that's what I did, and that's how, in 2010,
I was able to publish the dreaded follow-up
to "Eat, Pray, Love."
And you know what happened with that book?
It bombed, and I was fine.
Actually, I kind of felt bulletproof,
because I knew that I had broken the spell
and I had found my way back home
to writing for the sheer devotion of it.
And I stayed in my home of writing after that,
and I wrote another book that just came out last year
and that one was really beautifully received,
which is very nice, but not my point.
My point is that I'm writing another one now,
and I'll write another book after that
and another and another and another
and many of them will fail,
and some of them might succeed,
but I will always be safe
from the random hurricanes of outcome
as long as I never forget where I rightfully live.
Look, I don't know where you rightfully live,
but I know that there's something in this world
that you love more than you love yourself.
Something worthy, by the way,
so addiction and infatuation don't count,
because we all know that those are not safe places to live. Right?
The only trick is that you've got to identify
the best, worthiest thing that you love most,
and then build your house right on top of it
and don't budge from it.
And if you should someday, somehow
get vaulted out of your home
by either great failure or great success,
then your job is to fight your way back to that home
the only way that it has ever been done,
by putting your head down and performing
with diligence and devotion
and respect and reverence
whatever the task is that love
is calling forth from you next.
You just do that, and keep doing that
again and again and again,
and I can absolutely promise you, from long personal experience
in every direction, I can assure you
that it's all going to be okay.
Thank you.
(Applause)
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