The Blank Canvas
“Every performance in life starts with a blank canvas. When we fail to engage art, we sign our name to a stick figure outcome. However, when you engage art, you sign your name to a masterpiece. The great ones all understand.” ”
Commentary:
My first exposure to the power of positive visualization happened when I was 14. It changed my life in all performances and circumstances and situations. A new young golf professional arrived at our blue-collar golf course. His name was Johnny and he became my teacher. When I observed him during a round, he always said the word “Picasso” when he returned his club to his bag following a shot. When I asked him about it, he said that every shot starts with a blank canvas. He then taught that we have the option of painting upon the canvas a picture of disaster or success. It was our choice and that choice would dramatically affect the outcome. He then coached that his goal was to choose to paint a masterpiece before every shot. He then concluded with this piece of wisdom saying that when he returned his club to his bag, he just signed his painting with the word, “Picasso.” It was part of his accountability process to his goal. I was to learn along the way that unless we choose to paint a masterpiece in our minds we will end up in life with a bunch of stick-figure outcomes. I would eventually write a book based on this and other principles I learned from Johnny. A few years later Robert Duvall would eventually play his character on the big screen in my movie, Seven Days in Utopia. Today’s picture is the scene where Johnny (Duvall) is teaching his protégé to paint. That painting sits on an easel to this day by the 8th green at the Links of Utopia golf course in Utopia, Texas. Johnny passed years ago, but his legacy lives on.
“Where there is no vision the people perish.” Proverbs 29: 18