Instead of relying on third-party sponsors for your work or your art, why not rely on the people who benefit from it instead?
Rather than having advertisers on your podcasts…
Or big publishers for your book…
Or a major label for your music…
…you instead did work that people loved, needed, and wanted so much that they begged you to let them pay you for it?
What would your work look like if you took that approach?
My wife has a good friend who just published her first book—a beautiful book of poetry written from deep in her heart.
She is the perfect candidate for Seth Godin’s marketing tactic known as “First, ten“. And I told her that was all the marketing she needed to do when she released this book.
The premise is simple: find 10 people you trust, and show them your work. If they like it, have each of them tell 10 more people.
Like rings in a pond from where a stone struck, the ripples spread outward, ever larger and more impactful on the shores they touch.
Well, consider this my way of telling 10 people (quite a bit more than that actually). I urge you to check out her poetry here… And afterwards, FOLLOW HER LEAD!
Create your own art and share it with the world. Tell 10 people and let word spread. You won’t regret the effort.
(And check out her blog here.)
Do you have to be skilled with words, a paintbrush, or a musical instrument before you can call yourself an artist?
What about our work in the business world? Can marketing, sales, or leadership be artistic endeavors? It depends on your definition of art.
Art is the act of creation. What you create doesn’t determine whether or not you’re artistic.
Seth Godin defines art as “creating change in another person for the better.”
If that’s our definition of art, then marketing, sales, leadership, customer service, and every other potential job we have is artistic…
But only if we take the leap and use our work to make people better.
You are already an artist. Focus on creating change rather than your medium.
I was walking at the park near my house this afternoon. And when I crossed the bridge, walking the well-known paths I’ve memorized, I saw a picnic table next to the river where no table had ever been before.
It’s at the perfect place where you can hear the water splashing over the tiny spillway under the bridge—a light, pleasant gurgling and rushing sound that’s quite pleasing to the ears.
From the looks of it, somebody went out and bought treated pine from a home improvement store, built it themselves, and set it up in this spot.
They didn’t ask permission. They simply thought that this little neck of the woods would benefit from having a place for people to sit… A place to gather and eat next to the water with family and friends in peace and near-quiet.
This was a small, brave, creative act. They didn’t ask permission from the Parks Department to let them do it. They saw a way to make something a little better for other people, and they did it.
They took a small creative risk. That’s what we were asked to do on a daily basis.
No one ever gives us permission to be creative. No one will ever give us permission to make things better.
Because the way things are right now is the status quo. And people don’t want the status quo to change. So we have to create—to make things better—without asking if it’s okay.
It takes a little bit of courage, the tiniest amount of risk, and the will to act.
Anyone who’s creative will tell you they often get lost in the weeds of their project. But the “why” and the “what” behind your work are much more important than the “how”.
And yet, we often get stuck trying to fit our message into a medium that it might not be well-suited for.
“I’m a writer,” we say to ourselves. So when we get to a piece of content that might better serve our audience in a video format, we balk. Or we turn a blog post into a book…
“I’m a drummer,” a musician might say, so she believes it’s the only way she can create music… No need to pick up that guitar or try to pluck out a melody on the piano, thank you very much!
The form doesn’t matter as long as it serves the content and the audience. That means you don’t have to be a blogger, a writer, a podcaster, or a coach forever.
As long as you are doing something to spread your message, how you do it is irrelevant.
Julia Cameron writes that every critic she’s ever met was, in reality, a blocked artist who couldn’t bring him- or herself to create art of their own…
So they tear down other people’s work because that’s what’s easier.
I remind you of that to say this: absolutely, let’s hear it for all the amazing and brave creators…
But also have mercy on the critics and encourage them to create something of their own.
(Also, make sure you go through The Artist’s Way at least once in your life… It’s truly life-changing for creators of all sorts).
One of my favorite Zig Ziglar quotes of all time…
“If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing… poorly!”
You will never be great when you’re learning something new. Take the time to suck at it on your way to getting better.
We kill most of our great, wonderful, creative ideas before they’re ever born.
We write them off, dismiss them out of hand, smother them…
But we can’t know if our ideas are good—if they’ll work or cause the change we seek to make in the world—until we publish them.
Only by letting our ideas engage with the market, the world, or our audience can we know if it’s good.
If you judge every idea before you try it out, you’ll never be creative.
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What comes to mind when you hear the word “streak?”
One of the first images that comes to my mind is the tail behind a shooting star. It leaves a trail of light behind it, showing you its progression through the sky.
You can take that same metaphor and apply it to any part of your life:
Just like with the comet, you’ll have a trail behind you, showing your growth and development over time. You can see where you started and how far you’ve come.
And the longer your streaks become, the harder they are to break. Can you imagine exercising every single day for 150 days? How terrible would you feel if you made it that far only to break it?
Jerry Seinfeld is famous for his creative streak: starting in the 1980s, he committed to writing one new joke every single day. That commitment seems to have worked out pretty well for him: today he’s worth in excess of $950 million.
My challenge for you is this: pick a habit you believe would have a major, positive impact on your life. Commit to it, track it on a calendar or an app, and get to a point where you’d be devastated if you broke it.
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We have completely lost our sense of wonder. Everyone’s in such a hurry that we can’t take the time to appreciate the little things that surround us.
I was out for my daily Artist’s walk and passed a mom and her child. The child was taking tiny steps left and right into the grass, off the path, fascinated by every little thing that he saw.
Meanwhile the dad was snapping impatiently at the son and the wife: “Hurry up, move faster! Come on, let’s go, let’s get out of here!”
I was so pleased to see mom stand up for her little boy. She said, “But Daddy, there’s so much to see!“ There was, and he was adamant about exploring every bit of it.
We could all use a little bit more of that childish wonder in our lives.
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