Are “the gatekeepers” stopping you from pursuing your dreams?

Told no on your loan application?

Passed over for the promotion?

Waiting for someone to ask you to marry him?

Never given the lead role?

Why do we think we have to wait to be chosen? Why must we play by someone else’s rules and live up to someone else’s standards to be good enough?

Why not choose ourselves?

That’s what the painters Monet, Renoir, Cézanne, Degas, Pissarro, and Sisley finally did. They chose themselves.

Malcolm Gladwell tells the story in his book, David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits and the Art of Battling Giants. 

In the 1860s, Paris ruled the world of art. If you wanted to gain respect, and make money, you needed to have your works accepted to the Salon de Paris.

The judges had strict standards. Art was supposed to represent real life with very defined details. No paintbrush strokes should be visible. Abstract art was always rejected.

Obviously, the Impressionists art did not fit the Salon’s parameters.

After years of trying to get chosen by the Salon, struggling with being true to their art and trying to make a living, the painters decided to choose themselves.

They staged their own art show, in ways vastly different than the Salon They slowly started to build an audience. Some critics even started seeing the beauty in their art.

They changed the world.

Yes, it’s scary to go outside of the so called experts, gate keepers, directors and judges, but why do we keep giving them the power to decide if we’re good enough?

Be like Monet and Renoir.

Choose yourself.

Find a new way to show what you can do.

• Self publish your book.
• Start your own YouTube channel.
• Open your own business.
• Create a new product or service that you can start selling on your own website.

Maybe one day what you create will be priceless too.

Questions for comment: What have you tried to do but been told no by the gate keepers? Have you ever gone around them? How?