A creative life isn't about book deals and best-seller lists, Oscar-nominated films or Grammy-winning albums. Those things are byproducts of a creative life.

It's about acting on an impulse to express something inside of you. It's about doing that thing you can't not do.

It's a commitment to meaning over metrics, wonder over worry, and curiosity instead of judgment.

It's a willingness to try things that might not work and try again even when they don't.

It's about leaving the world a little different for your having been here.

It's a deliberate choice to take the scenic route instead of the most efficient one.

It's about seeing the world through the eyes of an artist, realizing that reality is malleable, and shaping your life into a masterpiece that you're proud to put your signature on.

It's about having a willingness to adapt to all that doesn't go according to plan.

In the geography of a creative life, there will be detours, dead ends, peaks, valley, false starts and false horizons. There is no "I've made it moment in the creative life" because the ultimate reward of being successful with your creative work is that you get to do more of it and keep playing the infinite game of creativity.