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Come for the creativity, stay for the expertise
One of the gripes I’ve heard about people wanting a career as a creator is, it’s pretty much just foolishness. Dancing, attention seeking, and comedy. I can’t say it’s untrue, but it’s also an incredibly surface impression. What’s less obvious is creators that don’t develop their careers come and go; sure, some people experience immense…
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Creative hangovers
In Creative Doing, I write about the judge vs. the madman; in short, you and I have two sides to us. There’s the madman, who produces and revels in chaotic energy, and the judge, who protects us and acts as a filter. For many of us, the judge gets stronger throughout the years and the…
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The energy edge
When you express something, you’re transferring energy (or vibes) to someone else. When you record these expressions—either through writing, music, product features and software, visual art, or film—you are creating media and content. It’s incredibly subtle, and subjective too. So practicing how to accurately communicate what you want to communicate is always worth it, so…
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Quantity as an unblocking and organizing force
You don’t think to write, you write to think. If you’re stuck on coming up with a through-line for your work, a driving force that organizes it, just try writing 100 of them. You may stop at four, or ten, or whatever—when you realize you’ve come across the right one—and you’ll get unblocked. That happened…
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100 different offers
People don’t reject you, they reject your offer. This applies to pitches, demos, job interviews, and pretty much every other thing that requires collaboration. The solution here is to change the offer. If you’re what you’re offering, change what you bring to the table and learn a new skill. If you don’t think it’s a…
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Less force, more fun
One rainy night, a couple of years ago, I stayed up late playing Pokemon. If you must know, I was grinding and gaining experience points, motivated by a streak of catches and an increasing multiplier. I knew better than that, because the video game was interrupting valuable sleep and sleep hygiene. Still, I felt like…
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Creators as experts
One question that’s fascinated me: How can creators apply their sensibilities and position their expertise to be valuable for businesses? Recording artists and DJs now have an opportunity to apply their expertise and tastes as part of a business bundle, and subsequently to make more money. It might not be as prestigious as doing a…
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Hotel playlists
Luxury hotels have a problem: choosing the right type of music, so that it sets the right ambience for the service team and for its customers. The Wall Street Journal: “While some cutting-edge independent hotels and hip brands like W Hotels have long focused on music by hiring DJs and producing concerts, the trend is…
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Remembering the good stuff that your brain forgets
There’s a narrative floating around on Twitter (Exhibit 1, 2) that we’re meant to forget things that are unimportant to us. Forgetting is an incredibly useful feature of the brain. The brain does also have a knack to boomerang really valuable memories or ideas back—often in an exciting, relevant, way. We have a name for…
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The rolodex
You really only need a few people to make your career work. For example, in the art world, you only need one dealer, a few collectors, a couple of critics, and a couple of curators to make your career sustainable. 12 true fans. The challenge is how you actually build relationships with these people. Well,…