The Practice

what if you recast your profession as a chance to actually solve someone’s problem? A doctor who prescribes insulin to a diabetic isn’t selling insulin; she’s generously saving a life.

“What have you and I been put on this Earth to do? Is it not the creation of the ‘inauthentic,’ that is the purposefully crafted, in order to deliver to others the gift and simulacrum of authenticity? That’s why they call it Art, and why, in some crazy way, it’s realer than real and truer than true.” Realer than real and truer than true. That’s the

It’s so easy to decide to focus on ego—our urgencies, our agenda, our needs. But he made a different choice, the choice to focus externally and generously instead.

If you want to change your story, change your actions first. When we choose to act a certain way, our mind can’t help but rework our narrative to make those actions become coherent. We become what we do.

Suddenly, you don’t always get what was guaranteed. And the tasks you’re asked to do just aren’t as engaging as you’d like them to be. The emptiness of the bargain is now obvious: you were busy sacrificing your heart and your soul for prizes, but the prizes aren’t coming as regularly as promised.

The practice of choosing creativity persists. It’s a commitment to a process, not simply the next outcome on the list. We do this work for a reason, but if we triangulate the work we do and focus only on the immediate outcome, our practice will fall apart.

Trust is not self-confidence. Trust is a commitment to the practice, a decision to lead and make change happen, regardless of the bumps in the road, because you know that engaging in the practice is better than hiding from it.

Generosity is the most direct way to find the practice. Generosity subverts resistance by focusing the work on someone else. Generosity means that we don’t have to seek reassurance for the self, but can instead concentrate on serving others. It activates a different part of our brain and gives us a more meaningful way forward. People don’t want to

Why would anyone sign up to create tension? But that’s precisely the tension that we dance with as creators. This is how we get sold on the thing we’re creating before we share it. We must sell ourselves on it first, before we can sell it to anyone else. This is why so many people have trouble with the idea of trusting themselves. Because they’re b

Art is the work we do where there is no right answer—and yet the journey is worth the effort. We might make art with a keyboard, with a paintbrush, or with our actions. Mostly, we do it because we lean into a practice, trusting we have a shot at making a difference. We do it without a guarantee, with simply a practice we’ve chosen to commit to.