Intro

I recently read “The Practice: Shipping Creative Work” by Seth Godin. Creative work is the generous act of making things better by doing something that might not work. A therapist does creative work when she tries to engage a reluctant patient in the hopes of helping that patient, and a leader who volunteers to lead a cause is doing creative work because she has no guarantee that people will follow her.

Creative Work

You and I have a choice every day. We can choose to be creative or succumb to fear and unintentionally become a hack, a hustler, or a cog. A hack is afraid to try anything new, so they simply copy what works without bothering to improve it. A hustler cares more about hitting their short-term targets than providing people value. A hustler has the courage to try something that might not work, but they do so for selfish reasons. A cog wants to be generous but is only comfortable following instructions. A cog will work inside of a system without ever trying to shake it up or improve it. As the world changes, systems need upgrading, and a cog gets left behind or replaced. When you and I choose the creative path, we are choosing to be more generous and courageous each day, which allows us to increase our odds of developing our voices, doing original work, and making meaningful change. But be warned, when you take the creative path, you will feel like an imposter when you try something new in the hopes of making things better. You will inevitably feel like you don’t know what you’re doing, get the sense that people are judging you, and think, “I’m a fraud.” But before you give in to that imposter narrative and give up, know this: every leader who stands up for a cause, every artist who shows their work to the world, and every entrepreneur who tries to make their first sale feels like an imposter. These people know that they’re doing something that might not work, but in order to have a chance at changing the status quo, they must pretend like they know what they’re doing and give their inner imposter detector reason to sound the alarm. Seth Godin says the imposter is proof that we’re innovating, leading, and creating. One way to prevent imposter syndrome from killing your motivation is to build a creative practice. If you commit yourself to one hour of creative practice each day, you will learn to trust yourself to keep moving forward despite feeling like an imposter. Your creative practice will be based in an area in which you want to develop a unique voice and are compelled to help others. Your creative outlet might be writing, coding, drawing, recording podcasts, doing one-on-one coaching, or cooking. But regardless of what you do during your practice, the goal is universal: learn to love the process and be indifferent to the results.

Fly Fishing

Seth uses the analogy of fly fishing to explain the ideal creative practice mindset. The first time Seth went fly fishing, he asked his instructor for a rod with a fly but no hook. He gave me an odd look, Seth said, but eventually found a fly in his kit. The next few hours were extraordinary, not least because I knew that there was no way I was going to catch a fish. My friends were busy trying to catch something; you could see it in all their actions. They were willing, hoping, and imploring the fish to somehow bite the hook. Relieved of this easily measured outcome, I could focus on the practice alone. I focused on the rhythm, on my posture, on the magic of the physics of casting. While Seth focused on the act of fishing, Seth’s friends were obsessed with catching a fish, which made them impatient, lose focus, and ultimately give up. If that instructor had put a hook on Seth’s line in the middle of Seth’s practice, Seth would have been far more likely to catch fish. At some point, Seth says, the professional has to bring home the fish, but the catch is the side effect of the practice itself. Now you might be wondering if I just focus on the process and not the outcome, how will I know I’m improving? You can measure your creative progress using two metrics: the size of your discard pile and the amount of work you’ve shipped in the last year. Drew Durnovich has published more cartoons in The New Yorker.

Drew Durnovich’s Cartooning

Than just about anyone, Drew is a genius who can draw a funny sketch in a few minutes and get paid for it. Well, that’s what most people thought until Drew published this picture of his desk. Seth says Drew’s not a genius; he just has more paper than us. How many cartoons would you need to have rejected before you gave up? On the other hand, how many not very good cartoons would you have to draw before you figured out how to make them funny? Most creative geniuses you’ll meet are willing to generate more bad ideas and do work they’ll probably throw in the trash in order to get to good ideas and successful work. Your discard pile might not be cartoons that get rejected by publishers. It might be lines of code that didn’t quite work as you expected, ideas that never turned into best-selling products, jokes that no one laughed at, designs that no one shared or liked on social media, or persuasive speeches that fail to move people. If you’re not willing to build up your “no” pile, you’ll never grow your “yes” pile.

Shipping Work

Number two: the amount of work you’ve shipped in the last year. Seth says we don’t ship the work because we’re creative; we’re creative because we ship the work. Shipping work is saying, “Here, I made this,” here meaning here’s a gift I’m hoping you can use or that brings you joy. This gift doesn’t have to be free; it just has to have a chance to exceed their expectations. “I” meaning I am taking responsibility for it, “made” meaning it took effort, experimentation, and skill, and “this” meaning it’s something concrete. Ship more of your work by making.

Make Shipping a Rule

Make shipping a rule, not a choice. Tell others, “I deliver [fill in the blank] every day or week or month. That’s just what I do.” It’s my rule. I deliver a video to my premium subscribers every Sunday. That’s just what I do. Seth Godin delivers a blog post to his audience every day. That’s just what he does. Now there will be days and weeks you don’t feel like shipping, but after you make the commitment to ship on a certain date no matter what, you will magically find the creative energy in the 11th hour to produce good work. Start shipping with low stakes. Ship to your mom or ship to a creative friend you want to take creative risks that you can tolerate. Every ship date is a chance to improve upon your last work. By improving upon your previous deliverable, you naturally build skill and refine your taste. Over time, with more skill and better taste, you’ll find the courage to ship to more and more people.

Conclusion

In the end, a creative worker is like a person driving a car at night who cannot see what’s on the horizon; they can only see what’s in front of them. The daily practice a creative worker needs to trust that their daily practice will get them to where they want to go, like a driver trusts the road to get them to where they want to go. Staying on the road takes skill, and you develop that skill by learning to love the process, being willing to grow your discard pile, and shipping more work on schedule no matter what. By focusing on the process, adding to your discard pile, and shipping more often, you will be well on your way to producing original work and making things better, better as possible, Seth says. But not if we continue to settle, continue to hide, and continue to scurry along the same paths. We have to do more. We need your contribution. But it can’t happen and won’t happen if we can’t figure out how to trust ourselves enough to do the work. That was the core message that I gathered from “The Practice” by Seth Godin. This book is a must-have if you’re going to do creative work and change the status quo. I highly recommend it. If you would like a one-page PDF summary of insights that I gathered from this book, just click the link below, and I’d be happy to email it to you. If you’re already subscribed to the free Productivity Game email newsletter, this PDF is sitting in your inbox. If you like this video, please share it, and as always, thanks for watching and have yourself a productive week.