The Power of Patience in Crafting a Fulfilling Career, with Debbie Millman

(gentle music) Headspace Studio. (gentle music) Hi there. I'm Debbie Melman, your guest host for the week. Welcome to Radio Headspace and to Thursday. This week is about designing a more intentional life and career. I'm so grateful to be able to have both after all these years. It allows me to better heed my creative curiosities and feel more fulfilled, but it was by no means a linear path. And this is often true in the creative field or really any career. Today I'd like to talk about patience and the role it has and still plays in my life. I have learned to have patience in my career the hard way, and I've learned to have patience in my career because I've had to have patience in my career whether I wanted to or not. Most things have taken me a long time to be able to achieve, and as a result, I had to cultivate patience. Many, many years ago, I interviewed one of the members of the band, Van Halen. I interviewed David Lee Roth and David Lee Roth was the very flamboyant front man for Van Halen for many, many years. In 1984, my first year out of college, Van Halen was one of the most popular bands on the planet and you couldn't really read anything or go anywhere without hearing something about Van Halen. And here I was sitting across from David Lee Roth, the flamboyant front man of the band. And though I was there to talk to him about all the things he had done since, it was too delicious a moment for me to let pass by without asking him what it felt like to be the most popular man in the world at that time. And so I asked him. At that moment, he became quite solemn and almost somber. And he looked at me and he said, Debbie, you have to be really careful when you get to the top of the tallest mountain in existence 'cause when you get there and there's nothing any higher, it's always cold. You're almost always alone. And there's only one direction to travel. And I knew what he was saying in that moment. I think it's important for people to be very cognizant at the speed in which they wanna do things. I find it now much more fulfilling to be taking slow steps up the mountain. I don't ever want my best work to be behind me. I don't want to be the person that did something great 20 years ago and is still trying to recapture that moment. I wanna keep bettering myself. And the best way to do that is to take small steps up the mountain. Really, you don't wanna peak until the day before you die. And so if you think of your career as a long game, you'll be able to create true mastery. One other thing I want you to think about as you...