Category: Creator Confidential
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The work needs to be enough: A creative manifesto
It’s well known that power laws apply to creative work. While the top earners can make an incredible amount of money, the rest of us in the very long tail do not. For every Ryan Kaji who makes tens of millions of dollars every year, there are thousands of kids who are talking to dwindling…
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Creating a perception
Media—social, traditional, or otherwise—is not the ideal place to seek honesty, vulnerability, and genuine connection. It’s not a place to understand reality. It’s a place to create and interpret perceptions. If you’re doing creative work, your image and brand are an inherent part of the art. There’s a notion that work should be appreciated for…
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Separate Bedrooms
Eddie and Natashia Huang just launched a new podcast at YouTube, Separate Bedrooms: Eddie’s blog and career has been an inspiration to me for over a decade. (See self-worth and dreams, outspending vs. outteaching.) He’s done a really great job starting with himself and opening up a window into his life. I appreciate the free-flowing…
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Switch lanes to expand your perspective
Once you get into a good groove in your work, independently or at a company, you may feel reluctant to switch sides. Sometimes, exploring an adjacent or opposing lane is the best way to better understand the lane you want to be in. For example: If you’re an artist, try gaining experience managing or selling…
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“What do you write about?”
My uncle asked me this last night, I’m over 16 years into writing and I still struggle to answer this question precisely. Sure, I can put the highlights all in one place. Here’s an attempt to catalogue everything that’s caught my interest right now: Creative Doing is a compendium of exercises to unblock your creativity.…
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Why writing is fun for me
“There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed,” is a popular quote often attributed to Ernest Hemingway. I don’t mind that Hemingway wrote it; what confuses me is how popular the quote is. From this perspective, creativity is a curse, and the image of the tortured artist…
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10 questions to help you decide between career options
What do you want to be doing in a decade? What will your ideal day look like? (How can you make it feel like Saturday, every day?) Which game do you want to be over? Which game do you want to keep playing? What do you need to to keep playing the game, and how…
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A fisherman and banker exchange numbers
I put this together based on the parable of the Mexican fisherman, as made famous by lifestyle design and the internet. (See also the situation where this parable doesn’t work out!)
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You can’t judge creative work by Sales
Or Likes, Hearts, Views, Shares, or any other type of metric. That’s a difficult idea to reconcile, because these metrics can influence how much energy you spend on your work. For example, if your work generate enough Sales, then you can draw a Personal Income from it, which then makes you a Full-Time Artist. (Congratulations!)…
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Donald Glover, on productive gentleness
When Donald Glover asks himself, “What’s a good man to you?” he replies, “Someone who knows themselves. Who loves themselves. My father was really gentle with us. Physically and mentally. It felt radical at the time. I really miss him.” Similarly, when he’s recently asked what advice he’d leave with his kids (emphasis added): The…