Category: Creator Confidential
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A decade since Hypebeast
I can’t believe I pitched this piece covering print magazines over a decade ago to Hypebeast. People showed love too—Hypebeast comments used to be friendly! It was really fun getting to do this, and it undoubtedly made me a better writer. Hypebeast also covered my work with Prologue and The World According to Kanye.
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Creative oscillations (redux)
When I was writing Creative Doing, I noticed a pattern: in order to develop your creative process, you need to get comfortable with oscillating; constantly swinging back and forth between opposites and extremes. For example, one prompt was, “Obsess over Details,” and another was, “Stop Obsessing.” In order to develop your creative practice, you need…
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Outer scorecard, or inner scorecard
Make something to sell, or make something you like. Write something to get attention, or write something to express yourself. Care about the outcome, or care about the output. Focus on the future, or focus on the present. Serve your ego, or serve a person. Appear like you’re winning, or be happy with what you…
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The Doing Thinking Flywheel
A few days ago, I tweeted a quote from Austrian American scientist Heinz von Foerster, “If you want to think differently, first learn to act differently.” Foerster was also known as a pioneer in the field of cybernetics, which investigates communications and automatic control systems in machines and living beings. I’d included this in my…
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“A luxury brand is a real and living person”
Jean-Noël Kapferer and Vincent Bastien write in The Luxury Strategy: “It was founded by a person, often the person whose name it bears, and contributes in some way to that person’s survival after death (Coco Chanel, Hilton Hotels, Guerlain). You can provide it with a more or less mythical ancestor (Dom Pérignon, Dom Ruinart, Veuve…
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100+ days of writing every day
Technically, it’s been 200+ days. I won’t count the first 100, because I missed some of them. The next 100 were a lot smoother and more consistent. It’s been a lot of fun, and I plan on doing this moving forward. It works for me. I was going to write a big, long, post about…
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Grass is greener syndrome
I originally heard the phrase, “Grass is greener syndrome,” from my friend Peter Kang, when I talked to him about this tweet: It’s easy to want to pick something new to do—a different ladder to climb, a different game, a new project or venture—because it seems easier. Better. More rewarding. Smarter. That’s why we want…
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Recent discussions of my work
It’s been a busy time here, I’m sifting through a lot of comments and ideas from one recent discussion of my work, and a research question I asked: Don’t think to write, write to think at Hacker News “Has a corporate engineering blog made you want to join the company?” at r/experienceddevs It’s been exciting—starting…
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Treat promoting your work as its own craft
u/AyanoNova asks, “How to get more confident in showing my art?” There are some really great responses in the thread—depersonalizing a person’s artistic identity from their work (i.e., don’t overidentify with it), and getting less precious about the work—I want to propose a third aspect: You get confident in showing your art by practicing showing…
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Flexible habits are stickier habits
If you want to do something every day, you’ll need to be flexible about it. If you want to work out every day, do it all times of day—and in all time slots of the day. Have a workout plan for when you have just a few minutes, or even one minute. That’s not to…