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I heard someone say this during an podcast interview once:

What would you have to say to someone in 20 words or less to make them stop and pay attention to what you’re doing?

Start here.

Start with something so clear and concise that is unmistakable and unforgettable. Then tell everybody.

If you can make someone pay attention to what you’re doing in 20 words or less, then you can tell the world about it.

And we’ll listen.

Quick note on this: It’s not easy. It will take several re-writes before it’s right. But it’s worth the work. We’re still trying to nail it down in some ways. It takes time and it takes experience. Start now.

 

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As we approach the holiday’s and the New Year, I’m thinking about the projects I’ve worked on this year. The things I’ve done, the fears I’ve crushed, and the ones that crushed me. I’m thinking about the walls I’ve come up against and the one’s I’ve bust through. When I look at these things I want to look big picture, take myself back to the beginning and think about why I’m doing this thing.

Why am I writing this right now?
Why am I getting out of bed in the morning? What am I doing with this time?

There’s another question I’m asking that I’m not sure I’m totally comfortable with but I think I like that… a lot.

What’s missing?

If I’m looking at the “why,” the mission, the “project” as a whole, what is missing from the equation?

What

We’re called to create. Let’s make sure that we’re fully creating the things we make. That means sometimes looking at what you’ve made and asking “what’s missing?” My friend Dan O’Day calls it “Happy +1 +1 +1.” When he creates an image, he looks again to see if there’s a way he can “+1” it. It doesn’t mean your original is bad, it just means that you can sometimes see a way to make it better if you stop and look. That’s what an artist does.

**(Note: this method is NOT the plan-it-all-out-and-make-it-perfect-then-make-the-stuff method. It’s the Make-The-Stuff-Then-Make-It-Better method. Huge, huge difference.)**

It’s not about looking for the magic bullet. I’ve already found that. That was the idea and I’ve already made it real. No, I’m looking to do what Steven Pressfield says in his book Do The Work, “Fill the Gaps.” There’s probably something missing here that could make the idea more full, the project more developed, the why more clear. It might be something simple. It might be something that will take some time. But let’s not blindly march into the dark depths of idea development without stopping, looking around, and making sure everything is working. Do that, then keep diving into the depths.

Happy Tuesday, friends. I’m so glad your here. Thank you for making stuff 🙂

Chris

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When was the last time you made something real? Made it exist. There was nothing, now there is a great big something that you made. I’d venture to guess that you’d like it to happen more often.

Here’s how to make things exist:

1. Capture your idea
And start to flesh it out right away. Or else it will be gone forever. One of two things probably always happens to you: You don’t write them down and you forget or you wait to long to do anything about them and they lose their luster and excitement. Carry a notebook, or use your voice memos app, something. Ideas are like storms. They pop up in the perfect conditions, are crazy exciting, but will quickly fade away if you don’t chase them. We have to learn to listen to the idea as it come into our heads, reserve judgement, capture it, and flesh it out IMMEDIATELY. You can’t let ideas (even bad ones) just slip through the cracks.

2. Make the first draft right now.
Fast. Messy. Done. It doesn’t need to be perfect, it needs to exist. Stop thinking and just do it. Steven Pressfield said it best, “Our job is not to control the idea; our job is to figure out what our idea is (and wants to be)–and then bring it into being.”

3. Do a beta test.
Let people you know and trust play with this new thing that you’ve made. Then use what you’ve learned and apply it to the next round.

4. Stay in Beta
Constantly evolving. Constantly moving. We depend too much on our systems and our methods. Don’t get stuck because “This is the way we’ve always done it.” If it stops working, change. If zigging stops working, freaking zag!

Make things exist. Please.
Stay-Stupid

Happy Friday!

P.S.

Hi! 🙂 It’s been too long. I’m still here, just wrapped up in the end of our busiest season.  I’ll keep talking to you though. You’re amazing and I miss you.

Love,

Chris

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  • James Todd - This reminds me of one of my favorite things on the entire internet: Paul Graham’s 6 Principles for Making New Things:
    (a) simple solutions (b) to overlooked problems (c) that actually need to be solved, and (d) deliver them as informally as possible, (e) starting with a very crude version 1, then (f) iterating rapidly.

    http://www.paulgraham.com/newthings.htmlReplyCancel

how-to-create-more-white-spaceHere’s why you’re having a hard time creating stuff right now:

Lack of white space.

You take on project after project, commitment after commitment, and you’re literally suffocating your creativity. We have to leave space for creativity to be allowed to happen.

Yes it’s true that sometimes pressure from deadlines can cue a burst of creative insight but if we always depend on the busyness to drive our creativity, it will drive us right into the ground. Busyness is not your friend. White space is. Creativity needs some wiggle room. It needs to breathe. It needs for us to pay attention and not just keep driving into the same busy-storm hoping that insight will come eventually. It might. But it may not.

The problem is that we’re professionals. We don’t have time to suck at our jobs because we will stop getting paid. So here are three ways for you, a busy creative professional, to create some white space in your life.

1. Make a “white space” block in your schedule today.
Have a set hour or so today where you don’t work on any project. I know you have deadlines. I know you’re behind. Do it anyway. During that time, turn off your phone, go have lunch out by yourself, take a nap. Whatever you’re doing, just make it not work. Do this every other week.

2. Have two experiences a month that will put your brain in a different thinking mode.
Go to a concert or a show or a food festival. Go hiking or camping. Do something on purpose that you have put on the schedule for the sole purpose of creating white space.

3. Don’t do Social Media for 2-days.
Imagine how much more space you would have in your day if it wasn’t filled with strangers opinions on the internet. Seriously, how much more time would you have to do things that free up your mind if that didn’t exist for a couple of days a week? I think it’s a question worth asking. I think this should happen at least twice a month. 26 out of 30 days of interaction on social media a month is more than enough.

These are just a few things that came to mind while I thinking about this this morning. SO:

Question: What are some things that you could do to create more white space in your life?

Happy Monday, yo!

Chris

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Nothing is new. It’s all been done.

Let me say real quick tho… just because one or two people in your Facebook feed are doing it, doesn’t make it an over-saturated market. We tend to gravitate towards people who think like us. People who do some of the same types of things and have similar tastes in music, food, movies, etc. It shouldn’t be a surprise when we start to see trends pop up in our tiny world that seem to be similar to things we want to do as well.

Two things:

1. It’s being done, that means there’s a market that exists and people want it.

2. “They” are not You.

I struggle with this a lot. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned from being a creative professional, it’s that if I use ‘it’s been done’ as an excuse to not make something, I will freaking miss out on an experience that could have been awesome. Something new could have come to mind while I was making it thus giving me completely different results than someone else may have gotten. Because that’s how creativity works and nobody gets to use my creativity to make their art but me.
Dont-reinvent-the-wheel

Don’t reinvent the wheel but don’t ignore your idea just because you think it kinda looks like a wheel. Don’t miss out on making stuff only you can make because you “feel” like it has been done. That’s ridiculous and it could cause you to miss out on something awesome. Don’t do it.

It may have been done. But not by you. Yet.

Happy Tuesday!

Chris

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