Category: Creator Confidential
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Need vs. Want
You can fail at things you love, you can fail at things you hate. One implication is: duh, do the things you love, because you could fail either way. You might as well fail at something you love. That’s only one dimension to life though. Doing what you love—or think you love—certainly can be a…
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What’s it’s name?
If you’ve noticed something interesting, do it justice. Point it out, and give it a name. You can call it whatever you like. The fewer people who have figured out how to put it into words, the better. For example, someone decided to take the idea of naming, apply it to business branding, and name…
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Career patterns
It’s great to have role models or benchmarks of what success looks like. It also makes sense to study their career trajectories, strategies, and tactics. What doesn’t make sense is limiting your work and options based on you think the person you’re modeling after would or wouldn’t do. For starters, unless you know your role…
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Emily in Paris
I watched more Emily in Paris than I’d like to admit, so this piece taking it on tickled my brain. There are so many departure points for responses I don’t even know where to start; the signature of an exploratory, curious, piece. Lots of implications for creators (in the social media occupation sense of the…
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On the go
Discipline, routine, and stability are critical to creative work. The philosophical opposite—the ability to work quickly, on the go, and with whatever is in front of you—is just as valuable. Hugh MacLeod illustrates on small business cards for this reason; he can carry them anywhere, quickly whip them out when he gets an idea, and…
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Instinct
Instinct is an incredible tool for entrepreneurs and artists. If you’re in the early stages of doing something that’s heading in the direction you intended, you’ll feel the momentum. Maybe you tell your friends about it, and they approach you with an opportunity to do business together. Or you’re tapping into a new source of…
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“Will it work?”
There’s really no certainty that anything you actually want to do is going to work. The only way to really find out—to get a real answer that matters—is to do it. Whatever you’re trying out, treat it like a pilot project. You’re just investigating to see if it’ll work. I like to move fast on…
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What’s your signature?
I recently came across Virgil Abloh’s lecture at Harvard once again. In particular, I liked his examination of his own personal design language; he says, “Your brain will tell you when something’s finished. And then post-rationalize. Make up something afterwards, or whatever.” That’s pretty much how he developed his design language: Readymade – new idea…
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72 seasons
An ancient Japanese calendar marked time in 72 seasons, ushering in a new season approximately every 5 days. That probably sounds strange to me and you, because we’re so used to thinking of seasons in 3 month increments. (Actually in Toronto it’s more like two seasons and 6 month increments…you get the idea.) Time is…
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Each work is a gamble
From the point of view of one who creates, everything is a gamble, a leap into the unknown. Kusama, Yayoi. Infinity Net: The Autobiography of Yayoi Kusama (p. 37). Tate Enterprises Ltd. Kindle Edition. See printing lottery tickets, the social media lottery.