Expanding our beliefs about what's possible

A while back, OK, I admit it's been well over a year, Rick Stitch fellow artist, teacher, & mentor of mine here in Santa Barbara, loaned me the book Portraits - Talking with Artist at the MET, The modern, The louvre and elsewhere by Michael Kimmelman. It's been on my shelf for a while and then it moved to my folder entitled " Blogs" so I finally cracked it open and while perusing the book I came to the understanding of why reading about other artists can be so beneficial:

Reading -or talking to, or watching movies -about others can expand our beliefs about what is possible for our own life.

I remember visiting another art mentor and teacher Adolfo Girala several years back when he was still living in west LA. ( Adolfo has since moved to London, England to further persue is art career). and I recall him casually mentioning he had made $250K the last year. That comment alone expanded my concept of what is possible financially for working artist. My beliefs expanded. I just received a group/touch base letter he sent out before leaving for London and he said he was doing even better. Congrats Adolfo! I hope to see you in London.

After Rimi Yang exhibited her large and captivating oil and wax work at Artamo gallery (as I write this, pls note - sadly- she is no longer represented there) I had a conversation with her via email to discover taht she was asked to be an artist in Residence in NewFoundLand Canada. Again, another possibility I'd never thought of - you can actually go to a nice place with artist studios where they will feed and fund you and you get to share and teach your passion with others. How cool is that? You can bet I've found a few residency positions in which I intend to apply to.

YOu may not be an artist in the tradional sense, but truly I belive we are all artists - creating our lives in our way. Therefore my question to you is, how has talking to others in your field, reading books, or seeing movies expanded your horizon of beliefs and possibilies?

Please do let me know here in comments....