John Rocha Quotes

For me, competition is good; that is what keeps me on my toes and keeps me going. I am always trying to better my own work, do better than my earlier films... do films that are challenging and exciting for me.

The first choice for me is what's going to make me stretch out in my craft?

I really just want to continue to challenge myself. And I want to continue to grow as an artist. I never want to stop.

If you look at why people become wack as they get older, it's because they stop doing the things they did that were formative to their work. You can't mentally stay still. You can't not challenge yourself.

Every book changes my writing because I'm always trying to do something I didn't do before. I try to do what's hard for me, what I haven't done in the past.

If you don't keep learning, other people will pass you by. Temperament alone won't do it - you need a lot of curiosity for a long, long time.

You have to keep cracking yourself open or you become a parody of yourself.

I want to make a better record than I made the last time. I want to grow. I want to discover new things about myself creatively.

You have to be critical of what you do every day, to analyze it and be willing to push it further.

You can't always do that which you can do in your sleep. That doesn't fulfill an artist. You're looking for places where you can grow, in some way, whether it's a large way or a small way. I want to grow as an artist, as a person and as a woman. I want to enjoy myself and my life and the company that I'm keeping. I want to bring something to the table that's different than anything else would bring, but that has its place and value, and then keep moving.

I like challenges. If you're involved, as one is, in filmmaking, you want to challenge yourself. You don't want to repeat what you're done before.

In order to stay relevant, you have to stay open to new trends and keep educating yourself. You have to keep evolving.

Play what you know and then play above that

I don't need anyone to write me a show in my style, I would like to do a show in a style that wasn't my style, because that's the only way I can grow up and grow out.

My only two constants are to challenge myself and to try not to repeat myself.

I used to go to all the environmental conferences when I wasn't an invited speaker. I was just somebody in the back taking a lot of notes. It was when I was least visible that I came up with the most cool stuff. Now, because I don't get to be Clark Kent, I feel like my learning curve is slowing way down. I'm always afraid the conversation will move on and I'll be up at the front of the room saying last year's speech.

Every day I wake up and that’s my goal, to be on a constant quest for knowledge and do something different, being unique and being uncommon.

You need to reinvent yourself every day when you are doing creative work. I always say that the moment I feel I'm at the top of the mountain and I cannot do more, I would be finished. So that's why I always feel the earth quake beneath my feet. I always feel myself on the fire. Because I think this is something that gives you the right adrenaline to work and go forward in your professional life. I have reinvented myself, believe me, many times in my life!

Learning. It's really the primary reason behind everything I do. Programming, entrepreneuring, writing.

Warren is one of the best learning machines on this earth. The turtles who outrun the hares are learning machines. If you stop learning in this world, the world rushes right by you.

I want to keep developing. I want to become relaxed in my own work and go deeper. Just growing and studying and trying new things and hopefully having professional access to work that's good and interesting. I don't want to be on the treadmill of artificiality.

Would you like to go to a doctor who had taken his last medical course in 1948? You have to keep changing and keep learning so that you are constantly challenging yourself, adding a few new songs to your program every chance you get. If you don't, the world will pass you by.

I never want to feel complacent, and I had started to, a little bit. I had started to feel like "I have this thing I can do, it's worked a few times," but not only does that get boring, but you feel stagnant and unproductive. So I was feeling a lack of creativity and motivation, so I started making a more conscious choice to grow personally. It wasn't even an image-conscious thing, like, "I don't want people to think this way about me." It was really just a way to keep myself energized and feel excited about this thing I love doing. Like I went to couples therapy or something.

I can always see ways to improve what I've done. At the same time, knowing it's all an ongoing life's work allows me to be less precious about blind alleys, failed experiments, and misfires.

I think, the more of a student I am, the better it will be for my work because it means once you have too many accolades you don't try harder. I would never allow myself to think that I don't have to try harder. I like the idea of always learning, always trying to do better. The word "master" sits uneasy on my terms.