I came across this idea that you can know what you want by first figuring out who you want to be. True goals, what I think of as ‘north-star goals’, have a way of changing you. You need to push yourself past your comfort zone, do the things you fear, wrestle with the Resistance, acquire…
1. Live for the process (that’s how you lose yourself & find your best work) When we focus on the process instead of the end result, we’re more likely to reach flow. Otherwise known as being “in the zone”, flow is a state of mind in which we lose all sense of self-consciousness and lock…
There are two kinds of power: power to (influence, inspire) and power over (intimidate, oppress, to rule through fear and bullying). Creatives engage in the power of the first kind. This is a shortened version of a speech by Nina Simons which calls on us to use our power with fullness and wisdom. So I…
Ten months ago I wrote a post called why you need to write like a bad girl. I was groping towards a connection between ‘badness’, writing, and authenticity. Except I didn’t realize this until I read a book (for a nonfiction project I’m working on) called THE CURSE OF THE GOOD GIRL by Rachel Simmons….
There is your “social self” and “essential self”. Your essential self is your true self. It alone knows what you need to thrive. It tries to send that knowledge up through your social self like seedlings struggling up through the dirt to break surface, seek sunlight. You get glimmerings. You get flashes of insight. You…
I remember a pivotal conversation with my high school guidance counselor when I was 17. He called me to his office to inform me that my high school – a small Canadian school in the village of Lakefield, Ontario, population 1200 (or thereabouts), that bussed in farm kids from surrounding counties and native kids from…
1. Writing a manifesto is ideal for our creative work and promotional use of social media because it’s about defining the path and the way. When we are on the path, when we commit to the path, we win. The fun is to win everyday. Creative work is a practice. Social media is a practice….
Write what you know. This has always been problematic advice for me. I started writing fiction when I was very young – I wrote my first novel when I was 14 and it almost, almost, got published several years later – and I could sense from my obsessive reading that writers were supposed to know…
1 In his book MAKING IDEAS HAPPEN Scott Belsky (founder and CEO of Behance) makes the point that a successful creative life isn’t about (or just about) being genius or having genius ideas. For all the emphasis we put on the ‘creative’ part of ‘being creative’, an artist needs to execute and ship. Often it’s…
