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Creativity

The work grows out of the work

One definition of art that I find useful is “a generous gift intended to change the recipient.”

From that, it follows that we are all artists, or can be.

If you don’t like “artist,” then “creator.” We each have the capacity to create things and put them into the world from a generous posture.

But what to create?

This question is both useful and dangerous. Useful, because work worth doing embodies thought and intention. Dangerous, because it contains a trap. One that I’ve fallen into many times in the last few years.

The trap is seeking only new ideas and ignoring the ideas you already have. Usually because they aren’t new to you anymore.

I’ve burned a lot of energy this way. I didn’t grok that, as Ted Orland and David Bayles wrote in Art & Fear, “the seed for your next art work lies embedded in the imperfections of your current piece.”

Read that again.

As they go on to say:

The function of the overwhelming majority of your artwork is simply to teach you how to make the small fraction of your artwork that soars.

Despite our wishes, none of us know which of our creations will soar, if any. So we must learn to find fulfillment, joy, energy, and value in the whole journey, rather than only at the imagined end.

This is especially true on long projects that have interminable stretches, when we’re out to sea and land is a long way off.

Making the work you want to make means setting aside these doubts so that you may see clearly what you have done, and thereby see where to go next. Making the work you want to make means finding nourishment within the work itself.

Learn to find nourishment in the journey and work itself.

The work grows out of the work.

Filed Under: Creativity

Beginner’s Mind, On Demand

Two months ago, I was scared. Scared I wouldn’t be able to keep up the course I was on. Scared my progress would grind to a stop. Scared I wouldn’t be able to deliver on the commitments that I’d made. Scared that I couldn’t cut it on the new level I was playing at.

See, about five months before that, I’d decided to go full time into product and software engineering with very little background in it. It was an incredible opportunity: join one of the best software product teams in the world and learn from, and with, the best. My answer was yes, almost without thinking, when I got the chance.

That was the end of last April. True or not, I believed that to rapidly get to a level where I could really contribute, I’d have to make an almost Faustian bargain: I would have to drop everything else in my life to learn what I needed to in such a short period of time. Social life, hobbies, most everything that I did for fun, gone. Note: there was no explicit deadline looming, but I always feel the clock ticking in my head. One of the curses of my brain. But to me, this deal was a no-brainer.

Pulling it off damn near broke me. [Read more…] about Beginner’s Mind, On Demand

Filed Under: Career, Creativity, Performance, Psychology

Why People Suck at Generating Ideas

Because they’re always asking the wrong question: “How?”

“How can we get there first?”

“How can I have more sex?”

“How can we beat Google?”

“How can I get his attention?”

“How can we get more press?”

“How can we increase our profits?”

“How can I lose 20 pounds?”

“How can we do this cheaper?”

“How can we get more users?”

“How” is the wrong question when trying to generate ideas.

Why? [Read more…] about Why People Suck at Generating Ideas

Filed Under: Creativity

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Andrew Skotzko (@askotzko) is a product leader, podcaster, and entrepreneur living in Los Angeles, CA.
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