Following up yesterday’s example of how one person created success out of what others might consider disaster or failure: Johnny Depp used telemarketing to transform a floundering music passion into one the top trajectories in acting today.

To people in the rat race, who blindly accept other people’s values for themselves, resorting to telemarketing would suck. They’d probably say their lives were disasters and be depressed.

People who didn’t blindly accept other people’s values but still don’t understand their own might view resorting to telemarketing as terrible but necessary. They wouldn’t like it, but since they had to do it they wouldn’t let it get them down too much.

People well out of the grind, who think about their values and don’t accept those of others without thinking about it, might view telemarketing as an opportunity to grow — perhaps not enjoyable, but something to learn from.

People who get it — who understand their values, respect others for theirs, and create their lives based on their values — don’t separate different parts of their lives. Their whole lives are awesome and every part contributes to it.

Why do I say this? Well, I’ve never met Johnny Depp, but I bet I could anticipate the answers he’d give to some questions that would reveal his perspective here.

I’ve read quotes that he loves acting. I take him at his word and that he feels reward for doing things he loves.

I bet if I asked him if playing a role in front of a camera counted as acting, he’d say, of course, that’s the heart of acting.

I bet if I asked him if learning the lines and rehearsing was acting, he’d say they were equally a part of acting even if those parts didn’t show up on camera.

I bet if I further asked him if he counted things like negotiating with his agent for roles and other behind-the-scenes stuff as acting, he’d say they were, even if they seemed remote from acting to others. Again, I’m not sure, I’m just making an educated guess.

If I asked him if telemarketing when he had no alternative was acting — here I don’t have to guess because he’s already answered: telemarketing was his first acting gig, actually.

If you want to be a great actor, everything you do contributes to that greatness. But there’s nothing special about acting. If you want to be great at life or anything in it, everything you do contributes to it, whether telemarketing or whatever you do. You may not reach Depp’s commercial success, but you can attain his level of emotional reward. If so, I expect the difference in commercial success won’t matter. You’ll be doing what you love and have peers who do the same.

• ← How to turn lemons into lemonade, part I
• How to turn lemons into lemonade, part III →