Category: Creativity
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On developing your capacity for self-doubt
A few years ago, a bunch of college students visited Conan O’Brien. One asked him, “When does the nervousness and self-doubt end?” O’Brien’s response was, “I have really bad news for you. There’s always some of that.” When O’Brien debuted on late night television, nobody knew who he was. “I had to learn how to…
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20 years of writing daily
Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabarrok’s work at Marginal Revolution is a core reference for this little blog I write. I’m really enjoying this interview that David Perell put together:
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Contentions: Bringing creativity, brand, and distribution together
As an expertise, marketing has an even wider set of specialties and experiences than many other lines of work. Even in the world of organic internet marketing, it’s easy to experience overwhelm considering the many channels; TikTok, SEO, Twitter (X), LinkedIn, Threads, Reddit, etc. While marketing can be extremely fun to work on (and equal…
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Your art doesn’t need more time, your time needs more art
I’ve occasionally written about the experience of writing within small amounts of time. In Big Ideas, Small Papers, I write: One of the most painful things about writing in small amounts of time is the lack of time for re-working. It feels like writing on a scrap of paper that’s way too small. I would…
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POSSE
Platforms can amplify your voice, certainly. However, publishing directly on them as a medium also changes the way you approach writing. A platform incentivizes you to think of what your work can do for you; true creative work requires you to consider what you can do for your work—and for other people. It’s a platform’s…
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“Why not?”
Sometimes you don’t need a good reason to do something. You need a good reason to not do it. Also, “Why not me?” Is there a good reason that you don’t deserve something good to happen to you? Is there a good reason that something positive shouldn’t happen to you? (The same question can be…
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Stick to the whim
In the early 2010s, after watching the film Pariah, fashion designer and lawyer Busayo Olupona felt an inner call to connect with actor Adepero Oduye and introduce her eponymous emerging fashion line, Busayo. Perhaps, Olupona thought, there might be an opportunity to style Oduye for a future work. The two of them connected on Facebook,…
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Good editing is cutting
If your personality is inclined to optimism, one of the most difficult aspects of the editorial skillset is learning to say no. There’s certainly an opportunity to liken this to the classic business strategy phrase, “The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do. Without trade-offs, there would be no need for choice and…
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Uphill thinking
My team recently posted this piece by John Maeda to Shortcut. When Carly sent the team an initial draft she and John had worked on, I was mind blown—it was the best thing I’d read all week. Here’s an excerpt: Humans are innately driven to take the adventurous, longer route. Our distinct traits of creativity,…