The Arc of the Practical Creator - More To That

However, a Practical Creator doesn’t find comfort in that. Because when you’re starting out, by definition, you have no audience. Crowdsourcing only works if there’s a crowd that cares in the first place, which is a luxury that’s not afforded to you in the beginning. That’s why in the first stage of the arc, you need to focus on building wealth.

This means that a significant time delay must be introduced between the expenditure of effort and the arrival of rewards. This goes against everything we’ve been conditioned to experience, so we often give up on our creative pursuits well before they’ve had the required time to catch people’s attention.

creative expression is often used as a gateway to something more practical, and is rarely accepted as something practical in itself .

This is why parents will rush to place their kids on long waitlists for art and music programs, but won’t encourage them to become artists or musicians as they age. It’s as if creative expression is useful for its abi... See more

Creative endeavors are inspiring because the scope of the problem often feels bigger than your capacity to solve it. But because you find that problem so worthwhile, you’re willing to put in the effort required to provide the best solution possible. Through this process, you become a more capable person, which allows you to address more worthwhile ... See more

A Practical Creator doesn’t view a boring job as a dead-end endeavor, but as an active patron of their creativity. In the same way that wealthy families support the financial needs of their favorite artists, the same could be said about you and your employer. You exchange your time for money, which is then used to purchase the clarity of attention ... See more

This is why parents will rush to place their kids on long waitlists for art and music programs, but won’t encourage them to become artists or musicians as they age. It’s as if creative expression is useful for its ability to create connections between young neurons, and once that purpose has been fulfilled, it becomes an obstacle that gets in the w... See more

Confidence is a close cousin of arrogance. Confidence is when you believe that your potential can be actualized, whereas arrogance is when you believe that your potential has already been actualized. That difference is subtle, but the implications are far-reaching.

In the first stage, to be patient is to accept this tradeoff: You are exchanging a majority of your workday for money, which buys you the freedom required to spend the minority of your day on your creative endeavor.

Unsurprisingly, none of my childhood friends who took those piano lessons are professional pianists today. Nor was that ever the goal for the parents who enrolled them. That’s because creative expression is often used as a gateway to something more practical, and is rarely accepted as something practical in itself.

This is because you’re now on the Great Plateau. It’s the flat place in the arc where you’re actualizing your creative potential, but are not seeing the practical results of that effort. The customers aren’t pouring in, the audience isn’t growing, people don’t seem to care. The energy invested doesn’t align with expected outcomes, and this situatio... See more