*Typing*
You have no idea what you're missing.
Easy/ Hard
Doing the easy thing makes you easy to compete with.
Doing the hard thing makes you hard to compete with.
Think big but start small.
By starting small, you give your skills the time to catch up with your thinking. Netflix started out renting DVDs. Nike started out building track shoes for runners at University of Oregon. Amazon started out shipping books. Shopify started out selling snowboards online. Toyota started out manufacturing industrial-sized looms. Instagram started out making pretty photo filters. Lululemon started out designing yoga pants. eBay started out auctioning Beanie Babies.
Give it time.
Time is the only true judge of beautiful work. Most of the work you see receiving attention today will be forgotten tomorrow. This reality creates an eternal struggle that plagues the creator throughout her career. When ugly, plastic work gets rewarded in the short-term, the choice to make something of substance becomes all the more difficult. In these moments of temptation, it’s worth remembering: Beautiful work endures. Ugly work does not. The choice is yours.
Empower / Imperfect
You’re doing the best work you’ve ever done and the worst work you will ever do.
Get out of your head.
Creativity doesn’t happen in the head but the body. It’s not so much a practice of knowing but feeling. And so if you want to be more creative, get out of your mind and into your being. This can’t happen in email inboxes, slack channels or Zoom meetings. It must happen in our physical environments.
David Ogilvy gardened.
Ernest Hemingway fished.
Virginia Woolf walked.
Ray Bradbury read (mostly poetry).
While I’m certain they each enjoyed these activities, it was through these activities they were able to return to their bodies. Our lives have become so cerebral. We are surrounded by laptops, smartphones and screens. They demand the use of our eyes and finger tips but little else.
When it comes time to call upon our creativity, it scurries away like a scared dog with its tail tucked. Find time each day to abandon your mind and enter into your body. Pay attention to the moments where you catch yourself not thinking. Try to repeat these moments every day.