The Details That Mattered to Their Inner and Outward Success

The power of consistency, routine, decisions, pivots, and outliers

For Natalie Goldberg, author of Writing Down the Bones it looked like a spiral notebook, writing every day, making connections, meeting friends, focusing on pens and productivity, making important pivots, and focused decisions to support goals.

For Jack Lewis it looked like reading, writing, attending class, memorizing notes, going for a walk, having conversations with friends, thinking, logic papers, drinking some wine, dinner with guests, and biking. It was about decisions, routine, consistency, and outliers. Being at Oxford put him in the right place to make the right connections, gave him the education and knowledge needed to do his craft and clout needed to elevate him to his eventual status.

For Vincent Van Gogh it was about buying art supplies with the little money he had, foregoing a meal and going into a field broke and hungry and painting all day. Calling unpaid work, work, and enduring mockery to his face. It was about consistency, determination, routine, decisions, one important pivot, and one vital outlier — Theo. It was his brother Theo’s connection to the art world and being in Paris when Paris was the Elysium of art and culture that ultimately made the difference…