The Creative Mind
the inner workings and challenges of life as a creative
sari and
The Creative Mind
The truth is that one day you hate yourself, and the next day you can’t wait to use your gifts
-Adam Jk
Evolution is powerful. It gives us the chance to revise, edit and do what works while removing what doesn’t.
Once we realize that there is almost no chance we’ll get it right the first time, we can embrace the opportunity to sign up for better instead of perfect.
Get it wrong the first time.
Then make it better.
Once we realize that there is almost no chance we’ll get it right the first time, we can embrace the opportunity to sign up for better instead of perfect.
Get it wrong the first time.
Then make it better.
Getting it right the first time
For his first 6 years of trying to be a songwriter, Paul Simon wrote terrible songs. “They were all terrible,” his biographer Robert Hilburn said, “I found his old demos—there’s about 50 of them—and it’s unbelievable: there isn’t one good song.” Finally, in the fall of 1963, Simon made a vow: After spending those first 6 years mostly “copying what
... See moreIn 1985, Nike held a 24-hour shoe design contest. Nike was struggling. Their stock dropped 50%. They had to lay off people. Adidas, Converse, and Reebok were all selling more shoes. So in a panicked attempt to find creative talent, Nike held a shoe design contest. The winner was a corporate architect named Tinker Hatfield. “Two days after the compe... See more
what a great little story
If you’re going to do high-level creative work, you have to accept the messiness of your initial creations, knowing that excellence is born from the sisters of patience and iteration.
The second you start condemning young and fragile ideas, you’re toast.
“We’re pretty good at allowing our incorrect certainties to slowly fade into the background, without a crisis or reckoning. We gradually move on, now even more certain about the other things we’re certain of.
Resilience can be found by holding onto our certainties just a little less tightly. One way to do that is to remember just how often the old ones fade away.”
ime not creating is like not exercising: it slowly erodes you(r quality of life) in quiet ways you don’t notice until the damage accumulates