The Top Ten Things
Bruce Springsteen Has Taught Me About Being Yourself For A Living

by Robin Wheeler

Bruce Springsteen is the consummate artist whose creativity, personal growth, business success and social impact almost defy comment. Here are ten things I’ve learned from him being himself for a living.

1. Make A Grand Noise

Do it in your personal way, through what you love, in a language people understand. Give your immediate and global community what they need by living it yourself, and sharing the experience, using various interlinked commercial enterprises.

2. Keep Quiet

Live as an artist with plenty of solitude and creative seclusion. Prioritise inspiration and do the real work of being alive. By being inaccessible yet communicating intimately from this place, you work with the power of paradox for a living.

3. Put Your Show On The Road

Venture into the world, not expecting anything but knowing that people will come. Then take reverent delight when they do.

4. Stay Home

Have your studio, office, den there. There’s no place like it for being yourself and, with today’s technology and trends, for earning a living.

5. Keep Writing

Let expression carry you through whatever living brings. Then release, market and sell your art, while continuing to grow, experience and write about it.

6. Work With Your Spouse And Friends

Why would you want to spend your life and travel the world with anyone else?

7. When In Doubt, Enjoy Yourself

Choose to have a good time wherever you are. Celebrate the occasion and connect through it, for a living.

8. Stay Humble

Keep reaching deeper into yourself, seeking growth and actualisation. Never rest on your laurels, and strategically ground yourself when you’ve had a bout of fame. 

9. Always Do Your Best

This will make your moment, help you through the ups and downs, stand you in increasingly good stead over time, and make you prolific.

10. Keep Going Until You Get There, Then Keep Going

Seek the right songs, sing them until they’re sung right, then keep singing them with all your might, deep into the night.

 Robin Wheeler is the author of Hunting Power about a trip to see Bruce Springsteen on The Rising Tour.