The process of emulation is a tried and true method for expanding anyone’s possibilities, without a doubt. It is at the heart of most educational endeavors, studying and learning from those we have deemed relevant to our pursuits.
We are actually wired to respond in this fashion. As I mentioned in a previous post, your brain contains what has been termed as “mirror neurons,” which in essence clutches the actions and emotions of others on an almost automatic basis, the process of emulation in action. We’ve honed in on this process since childhood, and in my experience it never seems to fade as we continue to mature, and it’s hard to see that as a negative experience. But here’s where it gets tricky.
A synonym for emulation is imitation, which doesn’t quite have the same positive ring as emulation. The question now becomes: Where and when do we draw the line on this cognitive wiring? And should we?
The Problem
You’ve worked ferociously on learning the skills of the masters, the gurus in your life that have inspired you beyond belief. You’ve captured their techniques, modeled their procedures, and reached a commanding level of authenticity with those skills. But the acknowledgement you receive for these types of efforts is waning at best to your utter dismay, and the catch 22 scenario of an illogical, unreasonable situation is in full flight.
The Solution
There is a twofold approach to this. First, make a conscious decision on when to stop producing work that is highly influenced by one of your mentors and begin looking for your own voice. No doubt this will be a tough call as their work all too easily becomes “your” work in a manner of speaking, and for very compelling reasons, obviously. But the critical element that is lacking when you’re in mentor mode is originality, nothing less than a staple in terms of gaining true recognition and probably the most sought after personal quality in the 21st Century work environment.
Secondly, you can get beyond the dependence of the skills employed by your mentors by choosing two or three of them and making a concerted effort to synthesize their approaches and techniques. The goal is trying to discover a new insight through this perspective, a new way of proceeding, and you now have transitioned from imitation to recreation, and the term originality comes back into play. This is far from an uncommon approach, but there’s a very good reason for that – it’s been proven time and time again to be a seriously legitimate and successful endeavor.
Some Thoughts
Both of these insights, as I mentioned, are all about the quest to “find your own voice,” something I promise you that every one of your mentors or masters has accomplished to some extent. Why this falls into a catch 22 conundrum is that many times that voice is found “through” the process of emulation. The challenge then becomes how to gain an awareness of when it’s hurting you more than it’s helping you, and then shutting it down.
I have no doubt most everyone in pursuit of their “art,” whatever that may be, deals with this on some level. The example that immediately comes to mind is Mr. Mozart. Mozart “very cleared stated” that after years of studying his mentors, he realized he had to shut that process down to be able to find his own voice artistically. In Howard Gardner’s book Extraordinary Minds, he shares this same observation of Mozart.
“To move toward the unknown, Mozart had to make sharp and difficult breaks—a break from his teachers and models, and a break from accepted practices.”
Being in the Arts for years myself, I found on many an occasion that some of the players at the top of their game actually made a concerted effort to “not” listen to particular individuals, as they felt the pure genius of those players would be nothing less than a deterrent to discovering their own voice on their instrument – a rather counterintuitive move, but I see their logic.
Bottom line: No matter how you get there, it’s not about your “ability” to be different, or to be unique that’s in question here. We all have that inherent potential. It’s about having the insightfulness to recognize it, and the courage to flaunt it.
