Category: Creativity
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Trust yourself
It’s simple, pithy, and cliche. It’s also something worth reminding yourself of more often than you think. There are two films that convey this message really well, spoiler alerts for both: In Rental Family, the protagonist is an actor whose job is pretending to be people’s family members. For example, a mom hires him to…
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Sketch, don’t paint
As I was developing my upcoming speech for CreativeMornings, I received some advice: you’re trying to paint, when all the audience needs is a sketch. There won’t always be a need for you to go through all the details in such high fidelity. Meanwhile, you can also choose from a variety of ways to communicate,…
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10 years of stories
Whether it’s a client-initiated project or a self-initiated one, my projects all have one thing in common: I’m telling a story. Spending energy in this process—finding a story, developing a thesis, pitching it, giving it shape, infusing it with experience and expertise, writing it, editing it, publishing it, promoting it—effectively creating assets that connect the…
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I will speak at CreativeMornings
I’m going to speak at CreativeMornings Toronto on February 27. The topic is entitled, “Redefining Creative Commitment.” Here’s the description: Conventional creative advice suggests that you must dedicate yourself fully to your craft if you want to succeed. There seems to be no shortage of advice from people who took a leap of faith and…
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An idea not pursued
There’s a lot of valuable feedback that takes place in Google Docs, in the form of comments. The problem was the feedback felt very ephemeral; after someone resolved the comment, it would effectively disappear. A few years ago, I wondered if it might be interesting to make a plugin for Google Docs that helped people…
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Launch first, improve later
The closer you get to a launch day, the more problems seem to pop up. Product decisions, brand questions, even naming decisions. These are the launch jitters. If you wrestle with perfectionist tendencies, these jitters may persuade you to slow the launch down. Maybe delay it by a week or a month, to get some…
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Going through the motions
Going through the motions is incredibly useful. It gets you showing up, which means it gets you started. You’re metaphorically greasing the grooves. It’s better than the alternative, which is not getting started. One way to do this is just ask yourself, “What’s the next physical action?” Then plan a time and place to do…