This is what happens when you show up

An artist is not paid for his labor but for his vision.

Every time you show up on canvas, in your studio, your vision gets more clear.

There's a story that I cannot stop thinking about that illustrates what I am talking about.

Can you imagine running a 7-day ultramarathon in 5 days with a pair of rubber boots on? Put yourself in those shoes and run 875km in under a week. That’s what a 61 year old Australian sheep farmer named Cliff Young did in 1983.

As one of seven children, they grew up on a 2000 acre sheep farm. They didn’t have any money for farm equipment, so Cliff had to do all the herding since he was a little boy. He showed up every day!

When he entered the race, people were concerned that he might not make it. When the race actually started, he was way behind. As concerned onlookers watched shaking their heads, he kept running in his farmer rubber boots with sweatpants that had cutouts in them for ventilation.

As night fell, the professional runners set up camp to sleep for six hours before they started their marathon again.

The next thing happened that shocked everyone was that, he only slept two hours and began running-catching up to the other professional runners. They didn’t think anything of it until Cliff finished the 7 day race in 5 days, leaving everyone in the dust.

How is this possible people asked? He said that he thought of his childhood as he was running to motivate himself. And he broke all records that year.

Throughout his life, he was responsible for herding 2000 sheep every day. Sometimes, it took 2-3 days to get them in one place. Without knowing, he had been training for this moment.

That means, he showed up every day. Rain or shine.

This is what an artist must do. Train every day, showing up every day in the studio, in front of the pen and paper, in front of whatever it is you are trying to accomplish. It’s going to rain, it’s going to take a 2-3 day all nighters, it will be difficult, but show up. All those hours Cliff put in paid off.

When he was awarded the $10,000 dollars after his win, he shared it with the other runner ups because he said that they worked just as hard as he did.

Be the artist that help other artists show up by doing the work.