How do professional writer's seemingly 'stream' their content on a monthly or weekly basis? How do entrepreneurs come up with their ideas? How do we create insights when we need them?
If you have ever intended to write a book, start a business, or create some new process to change the way your business runs, and have procrastinated, you should read Seth Godin's book, Linchpin: Are You Indespensable? Godin's book tells us how to stop being 'factory worker' who take orders and how to unleash our inner genius or 'daemon' to create and be artists. He emphasizes the need to 'ship' or to get our ideas or content out the door as the key to creativity. I have listed below a few key pieces of advice from his book about how to overcome the fear of creating your own content.
Don't aim for perfection, aim for something novel: There will always be ways to improve your work. Perfection isn't necessary; the act of creating is. Human beings, as a species, are really good at coming up with and trying new things. Most of those things are imperfect. Nassim Taleb's The Black Swan suggests that we 'tinker' until we strike gold. This mentality accepts failure, realizing that creativity is a search not necessarily a process. As you create you will have plenty of bad ideas with the hope that a brilliant one will come along eventually.
Ship no matter what: When it's time to deliver, you do it. No matter what. This is the most obvious but the most profound advice Godin offers. Our daily news articles, favorite shows all work on a deadline and Saturday Night Live goes live every Saturday ready or not. Give yourself a deadline if you have to. Just get it out and on paper, presentation, or in action.
Realize that all the greats failed: Herman Melville's greatest work (Moby Dick) was a commercial failure and wasn't recognized as one of the great works until long after he was dead. Perhaps that thought, that your work and genius may only be recognized as one of the greats of our time only after you are deceased, will comfort you. It may not reflect reality but hey, whatever works. Seriously though, great artists and thinkers sometimes have to deliver and publish many times before they discover their masterpiece. Failure is part of the search.
The reason I am writing this article is for my own motivation. I have planned to start this blog for quite some time but fear, or the 'resistance' as Godin puts it, has held me back. I have written this article/post to be the first of a long string of them. Thank you Seth Godin, I just shipped my first blog post.
