Shockingly Great Advice From John Travolta

I stumbled upon a great nugget of wisdom this weekend.

From John Travolta actually. Weird, yes, I know. Anyway, it’s from a graduation address given by Jerry Zucker…I bolded the advice that seemed to scream, “this is for you debtkid!” I’m sure others can take something away from this…

If you’re going to fail, fail big. If you don’t, you’re never going to make a difference. Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep. Ask yourself one question: If I didn’t have to do it perfectly, what would I try? For many of you, the biggest obstacle to getting there will be a fear that you have carried with your since childhood — the fear of humiliation, of embarrassment, of ridicule. That is SO stupid! Oh … sorry. But really, you have to stop caring about that, which brings me to Travolta’s law.

My brother David and Jim Abrahams and I were having pie at Rumpelmeyer’s Coffee Shop in New York on the day after our third movie, “Top Secret,” opened. The reviews were terrible and it was bombing at the box office. We were really getting into some serious moping and self-flagellation when John Travolta walked in. We knew him from the Paramount lot and he could see right away that we were in a funk. We immediately poured out our heart to him, explaining the pain of our humiliating misfortune.

I’m not sure what we were expecting, but John just smiled and said, “Guys, the thing you have to remember is (that) nobody else is paying as much attention to your failures as you are. You’re the only ones who are obsessed with the importance of your own life. To everyone else, it’s just a blip on the radar screen, so just move on.”

Great stuff, huh?

Girl Update

I promised a few dedicated readers that I would give any girl updates. Well, I finally have one : ). It’s nothing huge, but I definitely got approached by a woman at my church this weekend. We ended up chatting for awhile, and she’s very intriguing. She was also totally checking me out previous to this : ) (and I’m usually oblivious to this type of stuff!). Anyway, I won’t lie, it definitely made me smile, and I’ve been feeling pretty down lately. I don’t know if it will go anywhere, but I do hope to get to know her more in the future.

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/morrissey/