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I’ve been thinking a lot about purpose as it applies to the our work and why we do what we do. Why do we feel drawn to a search for meaning in our work and in our lives? I believe it’s because we were created to create. So we look for how we can best do that, not by actually making stuff, but by looking for the right stuff to make. Doesn’t that seem backwards?

Maybe finding purpose, meaning, “why” is not about looking for it. Maybe it’s about paying attention.
how to find why, how to find your purpose

What makes your soul shrink?

What makes your heart homesick?

What projects have you worked on that really made you feel alive?

Pay attention to those moments of clarity and connection with your work because those are the things that are going to start to pull back the curtain.

It’s important to have a general understanding of why you do what you do so that in the moments of struggle and confusion (because they will come), you have something to lean back on. A reason to get out of bed and do the mundane work that may not seem to be part of your dream… but it is. The daily tasks we may dread take on new meaning when seen through the lens of purpose and why. Also, you’ll always know if a job, project, style, or anything else is a good fit for you or not. Just ask, “Does this fit in with the story I’m trying to tell?” If not, just say no.

It’s the 50,000 ft view of our lives. It gives us clarity through a gut check that helps us to remember why we started this journey in first place. It won’t happen overnight. It won’t happen just by answering a few questions. It’s about listening, paying attention, and doing stuff, over time. It’s ok to feel lost. It’s ok to be lost. The struggle is part of the story.  But when we are paying attention, we’ll see the common theme in our life and work. Once we do, we have chase that with everything we have.

 

Happy Wednesday!

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This video kinda shook my brain up a bit when I saw it last week. I hope it will do this same for you 🙂

“It’s often quite hard talking as the artist because I have to work… hard at it. To make anything good, I have to work hard…. But I bet you every artist has some form of insecurity… you know, about what they create. Rather [or not] it’s good enough. You know… Rather it’s gonna stay at the top or is it gonna still speak to people or is it gonna lose it’s ‘relevance.’ You can’t worry about those things though. You have to create.”
-Salomon Ligthelm (Composer/Filmmaker/Artist )

The Great Abyss

It’s not about staying at the top. It’s about facing The Great Abyss and being brave enough to surrender yourself to it. It’s about serving others. Making stuff that only you can make in spite of what everyone else is doing or saying about what you’re doing. Everyone else doesn’t get to make your stuff. You get to make it.

Success and Creativity have very little to do with awards or titles or benchmarks and everything to do with living a life you define for yourself, making stuff only you can make, and loving people.


Happy Monday!

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It’s been storming for the past two days. Last night, a loud thunderclap roused me from slumber with a quickness (yes, a quickness) and I felt a panicked. My heart was racing as I woke to see what was going on. Once I realized it was just a storm, I allowed it to lull me back to sleep like the World’s Most Awesome Sleep Machine. I slept peacefully until it passed which, to my surprise, didn’t take very long. At it’s apex the winds howled, the windows rumbled and lightning lit up the whole house. But after all that fuss, it passed. So much faster than I expected.

Lightning photos, Storm photos

When things get crazy and it’s raining sideways in your life and work, allow the storm to lull to rest in the fact that it will pass. Probably a lot faster than you think. Freak storms may pop up but it’s nothing we haven’t seen before. Just the same howl of the same wind, the same rain on the roof, the same lightning in the sky. Storms are crazy scary and crazy beautiful, let’s focus on the beautiful part. It’s just a storm, get some rest. It will be over before you know it.

Happy Friday, friends!

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Being a creative business owner/entrepreneur is work. It’s hustle. It’s dreaming. It’s connecting and growing and moving and changing. Don’t start stuff thinking it will be easy. Don’t make stuff thinking it’s going to build itself.

No, build stuff and work hard to make it awesome. Make stuff and work hard to keep it looking awesome. There is no easy way out here. If you peek behind the curtain of success you won’t find an answer to a great mystery that explains it all. There is not a simple solution or magic formula that makes everything easy. There’s hard work. That’s the magic. That’s what’s behind the curtain. Hard work has always been the magic and it will always be the magic. Hard-Work

Adventure won’t fall into your lap and neither will success. Both have to be fought for. Both have to be worked for.

Happy Wednesday!

Question:
What do you struggle with most as a creative professional?

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“Entrepreneurship begins with frustrated wonderment.”
-Reid Hoffman and Ben Casnocha,
The Start-up of You

Wonderment is not something that’s foreign or learned. It’s written on our soul. From birth we are curious and full of wonder but when we reach adulthood, we’re told that we can’t do that. This is the real world. It’s time to stop dreaming and start working. But once we ask What If? Once we’ve decided that there’s more we can give (and receive): we start stuff, we make stuff, we shake things up. We chart adventures born out of frustrated wonderment, filled with a curiosity that has always been there, and fueled by action.

Adventure-wont-find-you

Wonderment leads to adventure when dreaming becomes doing.

Adventure doesn’t show up on people’s door steps. It comes to those who seek it out. Who start moving and are doing something. Action is not the only ingredient but it is the one that can lead to opportunity. Adventure comes to those who look for it not to those who wait for it.

Happy Tuesday!

 

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