The first day every semester she saw 120 new students. 4 classes, each with 30 seats.
In her book the famous Patricia Ryan Madson, one of the grand dames of drama and improv, teaching at Stanford University, describes that experience.
She elaborates on the importance of taking care of people, acting respectfully and memorizing their stories. She went so far that she trained herself to memorize ALL 120 names at once each starting day of a new semester.
When I read this I almost fainted. What an amazing ability!
This lady explains that it is all about our personal standards and what we expect of ourselves to do and be. No one else defines how our norm should look like. It’s up to us to make that decision.
For her, it is just polite to memorize all the names of her students. She expects of herself to remember their face and name at the first meeting. When asked how she does that, her answer simple is: “I just do it. I expect that it works.”
This reminds me of people who never stop developing their craft.
To them, its all about going above and beyond.
They always see opportunities to improve, they always are willing to embrace better ways. They keep the curious mind of the novice who looks at their work with fresh eyes.
I have met people with excellent skills, but hardly taking any notice of the people around them, never mind, remembering their faces and names. There are also some old hands that insist on the status quo and see themselves as experts in an unhealthy way.
They think they are always right. How they go about things is just perfect and they never should adapt anything.
When Alexander Graham Bell offered the Western Union Communications Company his new invention, the telephone in 1876, they let him know: “This device has obvious limitations, it is hardly more than a toy.” – How arrogant and erroneous in judgement.
I have to say, I like the curious people and I like the amazing standards, the Stanford lady presents. I feel inspired to be a little more like her.
When Michelangelo aged 88 was asked when he plans to retire from his craft, he simply said: “Whenever I stop learning. Until that day I continue.”
And strangely these attitude applies to all areas of life. Not just work.
Let’s put our best foot forward.
Have a beautiful fall,
much love,
Anselma
In 1912 Christian Larson wrote about the beauty of self-discipline. A good life does not come from being lucky. It comes from cultivating optimism and living it. That was his statement. I like his original idea and added some personal notes that seem to better fit our time.
The other day I was talking to a friend. He insisted that the nature of reality is subjective.
… always count your change!
The devil made a garage sale. He put a desk in front of his house and placed all his nice tools there. Envy, malice, dispair, hatred and jealousy were all on sale, one by one nicely lined up. But apart from those off to the side he had his favorite tool. It looked very used and was priced above all the others. It was very, very effective and it worked better than any of the other tools. It was labelled with the sign “discouragement”.
The other day I was teaching piano and a student’s mother was not pleased with the outcome. She complained that her child was not practicing enough. Her judgement was: the child is lazy. It needs more coercion. And well, I am just not the person who would coerce anybody. It’s not productive! And certainly not the best for the child.
There are two things that we can not see easily. But we can, when we get attentive enough and know a little bit more about human nature.
An old man and a boy were traveling to town with a donkey. At first, the old man was riding the donkey and the boy was walking. When they stopped by a little tavern, the innkeeper critizised the old man: “How can you let the boy walk for so long? That’s inhumane!” 
– Making mistakes is normal.
A colleague helping out in our company wrote, she wishes much success for all the upcoming new creative projects in 2026 but she does not like the word success, she means joy, recognition and a positive resonance with others.
