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Discovering the work that needs to be made
I’m finally making good progress on the second draft of my next book. It feels good enough to actually discuss—and much less fragile than the first draft. To be precise, it actually feels more like the first draft of the book that it was actually meant to be. “Every block of stone has a statue…
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Building a body of work on self-acceptance
Generosity is at the heart of all creative work. It’s about giving. You can’t give what you don’t have. And if you don’t accept yourself, you can’t give much of yourself either. “Abs are made in the kitchen, championships are won on the training ground, and a sustainable body of creative work is built on…
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Why applying to 100+ jobs doesn’t work
When I was entering the job market in early 2023, I caught up with my friend Fadeke. She had just started a really good job at DigitalOcean. She shared her process with me, and let me know that she did fewer than 20 job applications. This quantity was a really helpful anchor for when I…
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Creative energy: Generative mode vs. explosive mode
When I told a good friend of mine I wrote a blog every day while I worked a full-time job, they responded, “I don’t know how you find the energy.” I actually generate energy from writing the blog every day, I tried to explain. If I didn’t write the blog every day, I would have…
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Opportunistic vs. strategic
If you’re doing things right, people will knock on your door with business opportunities. Every so often, one of these opportunities will catch your attention. While you already have a strategy—a path you’d outlined to get where you wanted to go, and a list of things you decided not to do—you’re figuring out how to…
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Reconsider your definitions
One of my clients was a co-founder of a company that had raised $60 million in funding before they signed on my editorial studio to work with them. We met to discuss the project, and it went well—they liked the strategy and were ready to kick off. Towards the end of the meeting, he wanted…
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To minimize overthinking, set and adhere to a time constraint
Doechii made her mixtape, Alligator Bites Never Heal, in a month. She says, “If I sit with art for too long, I start to overthink. Then you start over editing. Suddenly you can find yourself with a completely different picture. That’s why I set a hard time limit. I told myself: ‘Whatever I get done…