What we think of ourselves and of the world makes us who we are and what we can be. This is what Hamlet means when he says, “There is nothing good or bad, only thinking makes it so.” The good news is that we can always try to think differently. If we create our worldview, we can re‐create it too by taking a different perspective and reframing our situation. In the sixteenth century, Hamlet said that he thought of Denmark metaphorically as a prison. In the seventeenth century, Richard Lovelace wrote a poem for his love, Althea. Taking the opposite view, Lovelace says that for him an actual prison would be a place of freedom and liberty so long as he could think of Althea. This is how he closes his poem:
Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage;
Minds innocent and quiet take
That for an hermitage;
If I have freedom in my love
And in my soul am free,
Angels alone, that soar above,
Enjoy such liberty.
In the nineteenth century, William James became one of the founding thinkers of modern psychology. By then, it was becoming more widely understood that our ideas and ways of thinking could imprison or liberate us. James put it this way: “The greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitude of mind.… If you change your mind, you can change your life.”
This is the real power of creativity and the true promise of being in your Element.
CHAPTER FOUR In the Zone
EWA LAURANCE is the most famous female billiards player on the planet. Known as “the Striking Viking,” she has been ranked number 1 in the world, won both the European and U.S. national championships, has appeared on the cover of the New York Times Magazine, been featured in People, Sports Illustrated, Forbes, and many other publications, makes regular television appearances, and serves as a commentator on ESPN.
Growing up in Sweden, Ewa discovered the game while trailing after her older brother.
“Me and my best friend, Nina, we were always hanging around, just as close as friends can be. One day, when I was fourteen, the two of us followed my brother and his friend to this bowling alley to play and decided to check it out. We were there for a while and then got really bored. And then we found out that they had gone to something called a poolroom. I had never heard of pool. We followed them up there and I remember, the minute I walked in, I reacted to it right away. I loved the whole thing— this dark room with lights over each table and the clicking of the balls. I just thought it was mesmerizing right off the bat.
“There was this whole society there where everybody knew this thing about billiards and it grabbed me right away. We were intimidated and curious, but just sat and watched everything. When you sit and watch it, or do it yourself, everything disappears. It’s easy for that to happen with billiards because each table is a stage. So, everything around it disappeared for me and that’s all I saw. I was watching these players who knew exactly what they were doing. I realized that there’s more to this than just banging the balls around and hoping something goes in. There was one guy who ran ball, after ball, after ball, and made sixty, seventy, eighty balls in a row and I realized he was moving the white ball around to shoot his next shot. And somehow, it clicked in. It was their knowledge and skill that really amazed me—that chess part of billiards, of playing three, four moves ahead and then having to execute it on top of it.”
From that moment of epiphany, Ewa knew that she wanted to dedicate her life to billiards. Fortunately, her parents supported her, allowing her to spend six to ten hours a day playing at a local poolroom, doing her homework in between shots. “People there knew I was serious about the game, so they left me alone. But we also had a lot of fun there. If you find a place where everybody else likes the same thing that you do, it really becomes fun. So these odd characters—because we all had billiards together—we became like a family.”
In 1980, at sixteen, Ewa won the Swedish championship. At seventeen, she won the first‐ever European Women’s Championship. This led to an invitation to go to New York to represent Europe in the World Championship. “That whole summer I practiced. The poolroom didn’t open until five in the afternoon, so I would take the bus in the morning up to the part of town where the owner lived, get the key to the poolroom, and then take the bus into town and let myself in. I did that all summer and then played ten, twelve hours a day. Then I went to the tournament in New York. I didn’t win, though; I came in seventh. I was disappointed I didn’t do better, but at the same time I thought, ‘Wow, that’s like seventh in the world!’ ”
Though her parents didn’t like her being so far away, Ewa decided to stay in New York to continue her pursuit of the sport, knowing that in the United States, she would have the opportunity to play regularly against the best in the world. In addition to scoring victories, she also became a leading voice for women in billiards. Her talent, her passion, and her stunning good looks made her a media star and helped bring new levels of popularity to the game she loved.
Fame and financial reward accompanied Ewa Laurance on her rise to the top. But for her, the biggest charge continued to be the game itself.
“You’re almost unconscious to what’s going on around you. It’s literally the most peculiar feeling. It’s like being in a tunnel but you don’t see anything else. You just see what you’re doing. Time changes. Somebody could ask you how long you’ve been doing it and you could have said twenty minutes but it was actually nine hours. I just don’t know. I have never had it with anything before or since, even though I am very passionate about a lot of other things. But the feeling of playing billiards is unique for me.
“Part of the beauty that pool offers you is how much you can learn. It’s a never‐ending deal. Every layout is different, so there’s always something to keep you interested. I just love the physics and the geometry of it—learning and understanding the angles and finding out how far you can push to change the angle to get the cue ball where you want it to go. And learning what the limits and possibilities are. Being able to control the cue ball scooting forward two and a half inches instead of three is a pretty amazing feeling. So instead of fighting the elements, you actually figure out a way to work with them.
“I wasn’t at all interested or good at geometry or physics at school. For some reason, when I’m playing I see it a lot. I look at the table and I literally see lines and diagrams all over the place. I see ‘I’m going to make the 1 here, the 2 over here, the 3’s going to go down here, I’m going to have to go three rails around for the 4, the 6 is down here, no problem, I’ve got 7, 8, 9, I’m out.’ I see them all lined up. And then if you hit one ball a little bit incorrectly, all of a sudden a whole new diagram in your head pops up. You need to resolve the problem because you’re not where you wanted to be. You were six inches off, so now you have to reformulate the whole thing.