7 Essential Traits For Anyone Who Wants to Build a Career in the Arts
The Hero’s journey and the artists journey are real. They come with the promise of change, of passion, fulfillment, and self-actualization, and they come with the curse of Eden – “henceforth shalt though eat they bread in the sweat of thy face” – which mandates unrelenting toil and labor. The struggle never ends. It never…
The Power of One Focused Hour a Day
People frequently cite the lack of time to work on any creative endeavor or project. But if you choose to focus on the quality of the time you put into your efforts rather than the quantity, it can make a big difference. One focused hour a day can produce amazing results. The reason I’m so…
The Life Changing Advice of 100 Insanely Interesting People
People frequently ask me what I’ve learned from the 100’s of people that I’ve interviewed. In attempting to summarize what they’ve taught me I’ve written a book, another book, and 100’s of articles. They’ve changed my habits, helped me rewrite my story, and accomplish things that at one time seemed impossible. These are some of…
Don’t Follow Your Passion. Pay Attention to What you Find Engaging Instead
The advice to follow your passion makes for great commencement speeches, self-help books, and Instagram memes. It sounds nice in theory but doesn’t translate in practice. It’s based on assumptions without evidence. It causes people to make decisions without data points or experience. If you’ve never written a line of code in your life, it’s…
Give Yourself an Informal Education that Kicks the Crap out of Your Formal One
Many people don’t read a single book after they complete their formal education. In his wealth attraction seminar, Dan Kennedy said that 80% of the books purchased on Amazon are not for personal consumption but as gifts. I couldn’t tell you very much about my formal education other than that I got two pieces of…
How Writing 1000 Words a Day Can Change Your Life
In 2013, I wrote a piece about how writing 1000 words a day changed my life, leading to a six-figure book deal with a publisher and becoming the basis for An Audience of One: Reclaiming Creativity for Its Own Sake. Creative habits are the compound interest of creative success. If you want to be a…
Making Something Timeless is the Best Insurance For Your Creative Career
It’s easier than any time in history to go from idea to execution. What used to take months takes days and what used takes hours takes minutes. Because we can execute a plan in minutes, we expect to succeed with it just as quickly. We chase trends, follow the advice of gurus, hop on bandwagons,…
Sucking is The First Step to Being Sort of Good At Anything
We have this misconception of successful people that everything they create is amazing. But, nothing could be further from the truth. One of the most significant sources of resistance for any creative is the belief that everything they produce has to be good. As author Anne Lamott famously said that all good writing begins with…
Why Accomplishing your Goals Won’t Lead to Long Term Happiness
It’s possible you read that headline and had a WTF reaction. As a culture we glorify achievement. We create lists like the Forbes 400, Fast Company’s 100 most creative People, and The New York Times Best Seller. All of this fuels a multibillion-dollar self-help industry to which I’m sure I’ve contributed with my podcast and…
Why Attention is the Currency of Achievement
As the expression paying attention suggests, when you focus, you’re spending the limited cognitive currency that should be wisely invested, because the stakes are high. – Winifred Gallagher, Rapt After nearly a decade of doing creative work for a living, I’ve found that activities requiring depth, focus, and attention produce a much higher ROI than those…
