Category: Creator Confidential
-
Choosing how you feel
My friend Peter has been running Barrel, which has grown into Barrel Holdings, for 18 years. In the past, he’d constantly feel the worries of what could go wrong the following week, even on holidays. If you’re an entrepreneur or independent, you’ll know exactly what Peter means—when the buck stops with you, you’re ultimately responsible…
-
The work vs. the strategy
The films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe have made nearly $30 billion in box office sales. The studio spent around $7 billion of that to make the films. That’s an incredibly successful film franchise—the highest grossing one of all time. Naturally, film studios are trying to copy it. And yet, Marvel’s chief creative officer Kevin…
-
Sheridan’s levels of autonomy
AI can easily take over generative creative work because that stage of work has a lot of room for making mistakes. In fact, you could say that mistakes are encouraged. Sometimes, an AI hallucination is the best thing that could happen to an idea. However, at some point in the creative work, there’s much less…
-
From 0 to 3,000 book sales
I recently found out I’d sold over 3,000 copies of Creative Doing in under two years. My goal is to promote the book until I sell 10,000 copies, a number which represents the point where people are discussing it via word of mouth. I am well on my way towards it. I have been putting…
-
Afterthought vs. forethought
Marvel has made a bunch of really great, cohesive, films that fit together well. You’d think that they had it all planned it out, and that’s not the case. Rather, the studio looks back at its previous body of work for material that could turn into solutions. C. Robert Cargill, screenwriter on the 2016 Doctor…
-
Find a task that charges your battery
When you look at people who practice consistently, the task makes them feel more energized after they leave it—not more drained. It’s similar to completing a workout; you feel completely exhausted because you left it all in the gym, and yet in a strange way you feel stronger and charged up as well. When he…
-
Stick around until you find the lightbulb moment
While Marques Brownlee is well-known for his influence in technology now, his first YouTube video wasn’t even about tech. It was a video of his golf swing, and a request for analysis. Marques eventually started filming tech tutorials though, and he saw a lightbulb moment a dozen videos in, when a video of him installing…
-
Advice for taking advice
The best advice comes with another person understanding you. In fact, the best advice could even originate from you. The other person isn’t forcing you into a solution; they genuinely want to understand the problem, and in the process of doing that, help you understand it better as well. They know how to ask you…
-
Starting, developing, and finishing
A little over a year ago, my friend Michael asked me, “Are you a starter, a developer, or a finisher?” He explains the differences, which he learned from Kevin Kelley, in this issue of his newsletter: While I initially saw each of these elements in my work, it’s become much clearer to me that I…
-
Polished packaging vs. punk packaging
Last night, Donald Glover announced Atavista, the finished version of an album he had previously released. He released the original version, entitled 3.15.20, with no announcement at the beginning of the pandemic. On the original version, songs had timestamps for titles (e.g., a song might be entitled, “24.19”), making it more difficult for people to…