Jeff Goins's Blog, page 2

The Money Thing

Why do we create? To share a thought: an idea, a story, a paradigm. To help another person. Maybe to feel a little more understood, a little less crazy. I like what Steven Pressfield says about the work of an artist: “The artist doesn’t create to express herself; she creates to discover herself.”

The act of creating shows me who I am

That’s true for me, at least. Through my work, I am always trying to figure out who I am. Or, as Flannery O’Connor once said, “I don’t know what I think until I read what I write.”

One thing is for sure: when you ask a creative person why they do what they do, their first response is almost never, “I do it for the money.”

That would be absurd. Why? Because that’s not how art works. It is, in the words of Lewis Hyde, a gift. Something special and generous you share with the collective is meant to be passed on to others. And gifts aren’t given with an expectation of reciprocity.

Nonetheless, we all have to eat. And who wouldn’t like to be paid to do what they love, to share their work with the world? It would certainly make some things easier.

Two lessons of being paid for creative work

I’ve been doing my own creative work of writing, speaking, and creating online courses for ten years now, and for ten years, I’ve been paid to do it. From my own experience of working with over 20,000 creators (writers, artists, musicians, and more), I can tell you two things:

First, the most successful creative people don’t do their work to get paid. Money, I wrote in my book Real Artists Don’t Starve, makes a better means than it does a master.

Second, the most successful creative people have found a predictable way to get paid to create. For some, it’s a considerable income, even a substantial business. For others, it’s a decent living wage. But most who have made a career of making things have found a consistent way to make money off their work.

My hope for creative artists (yes, that's you)

I hope the same for you. Because it’s no fun to eke out a creative existence wondering when or from where your next meal is going to come. It’s not very fulfilling to constantly question if there’s any value in what you’re doing. You deserve better. Or better put, your work deserves better.

So let’s get on with it.

The post The Money Thing first appeared on Jeff Goins.

The Whole Story

Sometime around the start of the pandemic last year (my phone wants to correct that as pandemonium, which seems appropriate), I had a call with my old friend Derek.

I caught him up on some stuff, since we’d first met many years ago at a blogging conference and hadn’t kept in regular touch. Derek is a brash New Yorker who loves to tell the truth and won’t mince words.

The last text I had from him before this call was when I told him my wife at the time and I had just bought a house, and I was painting the halls. “Why the fuck are you doing that?” he said. “You make too much money to do that.” I don’t know if he was right, but I hired a painter the next day to finish the job and felt much better.

The topic of divorce came up. He asked me the whole story, and I told him. He said he was sorry and he understood. And then he said, “So who cheated?”

I laughed nervously.

He didn’t back down. “Come on, dude. Nobody just gets a divorce for no reason. No judgment. But… you cheated, right?”

I said I didn’t. That there were things I would have done differently, that I had regrets. But, no. I ended the marriage and started dating. And then Covid hit and the shit show began.

I think often about our conversation. Divorce is one of those things that tends to bring with it a lot of nosy questions. What happened? Whose fault was it? Who cheated? We humans don’t do well with just a little information and less than “the whole story.” Every effect has a cause. What made this happen?

I read a novel last year, Fleishman Is In Trouble, in which the narrator who’s getting divorced says what people are really asking when they want to know the whole story is, “Will this happen to me?

It makes me wonder now. What did happen? Whose fault was it? How is it that every time I tell the story, I tell it slightly differently? I mean, I have been the villain, the victim, and even the hero, depending on my audience and state of mind. And I’m sure I have also been all those things even when that wasn’t my intent, depending on my audience’s state of mind.

Our memories tell us more about who we are now than what happened to us then. And so when we think of the point of the story, we need to understand: it’s not about what happened. That is irrelevant.

This is, I think, the point of all Joseph Campbell’s work. Are these myths and stories from ancient religions factually true? Did they actually happen? A memoir writer I know whose story of an abusive alcoholic father brought me to tears told me, “You know, there is essential truth and factual truth. It doesn’t need to have actually happened in order to be true.”

We are always using stories to make meaning of life. We do it for ourselves, and we can do it for others. So when you tell a story, understand the point isn’t to tell what happened. Nobody wants the whole story. They want the point.

And the point is the truth, even if it didn’t happen.

The post The Whole Story first appeared on Jeff Goins.

Hey Creator: The Whole Story

Sometime around the start of the pandemic last year (my phone wants to correct that as pandemonium, which seems appropriate), I had a call with my old friend Derek.

I caught him up on some stuff, since we’d first met many years ago at a blogging conference and hadn’t kept in regular touch. Derek is a brash New Yorker who loves to tell the truth and won’t mince words.

The last text I had from him before this call was when I told him my wife at the time and I had just bought a house, and I was painting the halls. “Why the fuck are you doing that?” he said. “You make too much money to do that.” I don’t know if he was right, but I hired a painter the next day to finish the job and felt much better.

The topic of divorce came up. He asked me the whole story, and I told him. He said he was sorry and he understood. And then he said, “So who cheated?”

I laughed nervously.

He didn’t back down. “Come on, dude. Nobody just gets a divorce for no reason. No judgment. But… you cheated, right?”

I said I didn’t. That there were things I would have done differently, that I had regrets. But, no. I ended the marriage and started dating. And then Covid hit and the shit show began.

I think often about our conversation. Divorce is one of those things that tends to bring with it a lot of nosy questions. What happened? Whose fault was it? Who cheated? We humans don’t do well with just a little information and less than “the whole story.” Every effect has a cause. What made this happen?

I read a novel last year, Fleishman Is In Trouble, in which the narrator who’s getting divorced says what people are really asking when they want to know the whole story is, “Will this happen to me?

It makes me wonder now. What did happen? Whose fault was it? How is it that every time I tell the story, I tell it slightly differently? I mean, I have been the villain, the victim, and even the hero, depending on my audience and state of mind. And I’m sure I have also been all those things even when that wasn’t my intent, depending on my audience’s state of mind.

Our memories tell us more about who we are now than what happened to us then. And so when we think of the point of the story, we need to understand: it’s not about what happened. That is irrelevant.

This is, I think, the point of all Joseph Campbell’s work. Are these myths and stories from ancient religions factually true? Did they actually happen? A memoir writer I know whose story of an abusive alcoholic father brought me to tears told me, “You know, there is essential truth and factual truth. It doesn’t need to have actually happened in order to be true.”

We are always using stories to make meaning of life. We do it for ourselves, and we can do it for others. So when you tell a story, understand the point isn’t to tell what happened. Nobody wants the whole story. They want the point.

And the point is the truth, even if it didn’t happen.

“There is seldom a single villain in a divorce, and seldom a hero.” NYT-bestselling author Joyce Maynard on how she made peace with her divorce.​

At the height the of #MeToo in 2017, The New Yorker published the first-ever short story to go viral: “Cat Person” by Kristen Roupenian. Last week, Alexis Nowicki published a response essay, revealing that the story was based on her, even though she and the author had never met. When does fiction become biography, and when is that not OK?

​Art, branding, and the illusion of authenticity.​

“The expectation that fiction is autobiographical is understandable for the simple reason that so much of it is. When that expectation becomes prescriptive, however, critical reading can devolve into a tiresome kind of fact-checking.” (NYT)

From The Cut: How email newsletters became a literary genre.

Issue 1 of the HC podcast is out! We’re talking about the art of re-creation, which you may remember from the first edition of this newsletter. Once we’re all caught up, we’ll release both this newsletter and the podcast each week with complementary themes to keep the conversation going. Check it out and let us know what you think!

Reminder: Our team of creators is growing fast, and we’re currently looking for talented ghostwriters, book proposal writers, editors, and copywriters. If you’ve done any of these things before and want to do more as part of a dynamic remote team, we want to hear from you. Fill out our application here.​

Jeff, who is currently writing a whole story for a client whose first book will come out next year. (Did you know Jeff is also building a ghostwriting agency?)

Chantel, whose whole story is probably gonna require a whole book.

Matt, without whom this issue never would've made it out of the Google doc.

Will, who made sure it arrived in your inbox.

The post Hey Creator: The Whole Story first appeared on Jeff Goins.

The Discipline of Disappearing

Every day, I try to disappear. It is my version of staying sane, of getting in touch with what matters most to me. Depending on the day, I spend an hour or so walking, typically surrounded by trees, hills, and hopefully an animal or two. This is how I clear my head, how I work through difficult and uncomfortable feelings, how I come up with my best ideas.

But sometimes, I need to leave for longer.

Last fall, I went on a hiking retreat to Zion National Park with some friends, and we hiked to the top of Angel’s Landing, one of the most dangerous hikes in America. Along the way, there is a long chain for hikers to hold onto as they ascend the peak.

This was during COVID, so the area was closed since they didn’t want people licking the chains or something. Seeing the CLOSED sign, I immediately looked at my friend and said, “I want to go.” He grinned a boyish grin and nodded. We both grabbed the chains and made our way up, no licking involved.

After thirty minutes of climbing, we reached the summit, surprised to see we were the only ones. We spent an hour exploring, each of us disappearing into our own activities. My friend started meditating or praying, I think, or maybe he just took a nap.

I walked to the edge of the mountain, sat with my feet dangling, and took a deep breath. Below was a 1500-foot drop, and I felt… alive. This is it, I thought. This is the art of living: to be so close to death that you can’t deny the power of life. To sit and stare at the beauty of creation, to breathe deeply in the mountain air. To enjoy the stillness and just be.

I returned from the trip a different man, clearer. It took many months to unfold, but after a trying and difficult season in which I could not see beyond my own pain and confusion, I was finally able to get a vision for what was next. This is what disappearing does.

This is nothing new for artists. At the age of 22, Bob Dylan was on the verge of quitting music and decided to spend a few days in Woodstock, NY after a long and exhausting tour in Europe.

One night he started writing something, the result being 10-20 pages of stream-of-consciousness that became “Like a Rolling Stone,” what has been called the greatest song of all time and the first song I ever illegally downloaded in college (true story).

Retreating from the world, it seems, just might be the best way to change it.

Disappearance can also refresh a person, reminding us of what we are truly capable of. It can invigorate and inspire us, as it did for Agatha Christie, whose own disappearance made international news and marked a shift in both her work and life, leading her to travel the world, find new love, and become the bestselling writer of all time (tied with Shakespeare).

What makes a disappearance good is nothing, by which I mean that nothingness is an essential part of the process: no responsibilities, no to-do lists, no contact with the outside world (if possible). This kind of detachment is hard in our modern world—and it is necessary.

To do our best work, we must leave what we know, as Van Gogh left his Impressionist cohorts to retreat to the South of France, where he entered the most prolific and productive season of his life.

Leaving allows us to create the space we need for something new to emerge.

Our best work, ironically, doesn’t always come from working. Thoreau, who was not only a writer but a surveyor, considered his daily walks a matter of survival. He wrote in the last essay he ever published:

I think I cannot preserve my health and spirits unless I spend four hours a day at least—and it is commonly more than that—sauntering through the woods and fields absolutely free from all worldly engagements.

Sometimes, going forward sets us back, and what we really need to grow is to slow down. This is the quest of the artist, the visionary, the creator. She must go to the heart of life, tasting it at the very marrow, and only then return to talk about it.

This is not a weekend stay at the Ritz; it is a Campbellian descent into the belly of the beast. Discomfort is the point. When we retreat, even if only by turning off our devices for an evening, we reconnect with what we really are.

For some traditions, such as the Jewish Sabbath, this regular unplugging and reconnecting with our souls is built right in. But for many of us, it is foreign. We are stuck in the rut of routines, and retreating from such a humdrum existence, even for a day, seems almost unthinkable.

But this is a natural part of life, the becoming and unbecoming, and to be more creative, we need to do more of it.

If we don’t disappear, we miss so much, getting lost in the myopia of our daily dramas. The discipline of stepping away from the outer world to access a deeper, inner one is what makes our work—and our lives—meaningful.

So, try it. I dare ya.

The post The Discipline of Disappearing first appeared on Jeff Goins.

Hey Creator: The Discipline of Disappearing

Every day, I try to disappear. It is my version of staying sane, of getting in touch with what matters most to me. Depending on the day, I spend an hour or so walking, typically surrounded by trees, hills, and hopefully an animal or two. This is how I clear my head, how I work through difficult and uncomfortable feelings, how I come up with my best ideas.

But sometimes, I need to leave for longer.

Last fall, I went on a hiking retreat to Zion National Park with some friends, and we hiked to the top of Angel’s Landing, one of the most dangerous hikes in America. Along the way, there is a long chain for hikers to hold onto as they ascend the peak.

This was during COVID, so the area was closed since they didn’t want people licking the chains or something. Seeing the CLOSED sign, I immediately looked at my friend and said, “I want to go.” He grinned a boyish grin and nodded. We both grabbed the chains and made our way up, no licking involved.

After thirty minutes of climbing, we reached the summit, surprised to see we were the only ones. We spent an hour exploring, each of us disappearing into our own activities. My friend started meditating or praying, I think, or maybe he just took a nap.

I walked to the edge of the mountain, sat with my feet dangling, and took a deep breath. Below was a 1500-foot drop, and I felt… alive. This is it, I thought. This is the art of living: to be so close to death that you can’t deny the power of life. To sit and stare at the beauty of creation, to breathe deeply in the mountain air. To enjoy the stillness and just be.

I returned from the trip a different man, clearer. It took many months to unfold, but after a trying and difficult season in which I could not see beyond my own pain and confusion, I was finally able to get a vision for what was next. This is what disappearing does.

This is nothing new for artists. At the age of 22, Bob Dylan was on the verge of quitting music and decided to spend a few days in Woodstock, NY after a long and exhausting tour in Europe.

One night he started writing something, the result being 10-20 pages of stream-of-consciousness that became “Like a Rolling Stone,” what has been called the greatest song of all time and the first song I ever illegally downloaded in college (true story).

Retreating from the world, it seems, just might be the best way to change it.

Disappearance can also refresh a person, reminding us of what we are truly capable of. It can invigorate and inspire us, as it did for Agatha Christie, whose own disappearance made international news and marked a shift in both her work and life, leading her to travel the world, find new love, and become the bestselling writer of all time (tied with Shakespeare).

What makes a disappearance good is nothing, by which I mean that nothingness is an essential part of the process: no responsibilities, no to-do lists, no contact with the outside world (if possible). This kind of detachment is hard in our modern world—and it is necessary.

To do our best work, we must leave what we know, as Van Gogh left his Impressionist cohorts to retreat to the South of France, where he entered the most prolific and productive season of his life.

Leaving allows us to create the space we need for something new to emerge.

Our best work, ironically, doesn’t always come from working. Thoreau, who was not only a writer but a surveyor, considered his daily walks a matter of survival. He wrote in the last essay he ever published:

I think I cannot preserve my health and spirits unless I spend four hours a day at least—and it is commonly more than that—sauntering through the woods and fields absolutely free from all worldly engagements.

Sometimes, going forward sets us back, and what we really need to grow is to slow down. This is the quest of the artist, the visionary, the creator. She must go to the heart of life, tasting it at the very marrow, and only then return to talk about it.

This is not a weekend stay at the Ritz; it is a Campbellian descent into the belly of the beast. Discomfort is the point. When we retreat, even if only by turning off our devices for an evening, we reconnect with what we really are.

For some traditions, such as the Jewish Sabbath, this regular unplugging and reconnecting with our souls is built right in. But for many of us, it is foreign. We are stuck in the rut of routines, and retreating from such a humdrum existence, even for a day, seems almost unthinkable.

But this is a natural part of life, the becoming and unbecoming, and to be more creative, we need to do more of it.

If we don’t disappear, we miss so much, getting lost in the myopia of our daily dramas. The discipline of stepping away from the outer world to access a deeper, inner one is what makes our work—and our lives—meaningful.

So, try it. I dare ya.

—Jeff

“When should a person’s ‘permanent digital record’ start recording, if ever? To what extent should social media be a space for trial-and-error exploration around identity and social behavior?” The Washington Post asks if social media posts should disappear as teens get older. (The right to be forgotten already exists in Europe.)

​Ephemeral tattoos use ink that disappears in a year. (This reminds us of The Most Dangerous Writing App, which deletes all your work if you stop writing before the timer goes off.)

The fact that imperial fashion editors have gone extinct (NYT) is kinda-sorta relevant to our theme this week, but the article itself includes a gem that all thriving creators can relate to about how the editors themselves had become necessary caricatures: “It was almost as if in order to be the editor in chief of a major style publication, you had to adopt the persona to succeed. Indeed, the nuttier and more dramatic the antics, the more connected to the myths of the ‘creative’ the editor could seem.” Later in the article is a great quote about what that kind of culture does to a creator (and, I would argue, to their art): “You can’t just be a symbol. If you don’t really have independence and you don’t have authority, what are you?”

Craving a disappearance of your own? Here are some of the world’s best treetop retreats. (And here’s the NYT on the growing trend of “small travel”, which appears to be a pandemic-informed midpoint between staycations and disappearing off the face of the earth.)

What happens when a controversial, inarguable “hit maker who helped define comedy for Millennials and Gen Z” disappears almost overnight…and then wants to come back to TV? (NYT)

How important is it for me to be on social media? How do I choose which outlets to devote my time to? I feel like I spend all my time trying to be everywhere, and I can’t get any real creative work done. How can I grow an audience when all I want to do is disappear and just create? —Ariel

Hi, Ariel. Great question! And right on theme. I suggest stepping away for a few days, a weekend perhaps, and getting really clear on what you want to create. Then, do a little research and find out where people who are doing what you want to do are hanging out. You don’t need to be everywhere; that’s a recipe for burning yourself out. You need to be fully present, somewhere. I suggest starting with one channel or platform that makes sense to you. For me, this was Twitter. I liked it, got it, and could dedicate some time and attention to it for the long haul. Of course, over time, my presence broadened and even shifted; but it started simply by showing up in a conversation where I could fully immerse myself and learning to do it well. To quote Jim Elliot, “Wherever you are, be all there.”

Just launched: the Hey, Creator podcast! Join Jeff and his co-hosts and guests every Tuesday for a dose of inspiration, information, motivation, and shenanigans. The trailer just dropped last week and the first audio issue should be up soon. Listen wherever you enjoy podcasts, and be sure to leave a review on iTunes!

Our team of creators is growing fast, and we’re currently looking for talented ghostwriters, book proposal writers, editors, and copywriters. If you’ve done any of these things before and want to do more as part of a dynamic remote team, we want to hear from you. Fill out our application here.​

“No matter how far away you are from yourself, no matter how exiled you feel from your contribution to the rest of the world or to society…all you have to do is enumerate exactly the way you don’t feel at home in the world—to say exactly how you don’t belong. And the moment you’ve uttered the exact dimensionality of your exile, you’re already taking the path back to the place you should be. You’re already on your way home.” —David Whyte​

Jeff, our fearless leader, who has found that the best and quickest way to find your missing Airpods is to order a new pair. He’s about to be on to his third pair.

Chantel, our editor, who disappeared (like, yesterday) from her whole country of Canada to move to Tennessee for the summer. She is working on her “y’all” as you read this.

​Sandy, our community leader, who just pulled an epic vanishing act on Facebook by moving our online community to Circle. Have you signed up yet?​

Matt, who is on retreat right now, which means he wins this week.

The post Hey Creator: The Discipline of Disappearing first appeared on Jeff Goins.

Categories, Scattergories

All creative work starts with category

One of the first questions my team and I ask our first-time author clients is this: “What kind of book is it?”

Rarely do they know the answer. They’ll say something like “a good one” or “one that will help everybody.”

But that doesn’t work. Readers don’t want to be one of many any more than authors do. We all want to be unique. We want to feel special. And we are. But all specialness begins with belonging: writers must first step into a space, some category or genre to which we would like to belong.

The reassuring news for creators is that truly inspiring art doesn’t stay in whatever category it begins. To paraphrase a quote attributed to Picasso, “Learn the rules like a pro so you can break them like an artist.” This is how you stand out, how you create a perennial seller, how you launch a sincere blockbuster.

Why is this the case?

If you are competing with someone who already owns an idea in the marketplace, trying to beat them won’t work. Al Ries calls this The Law of the First in his book The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing.

The idea here is that if you are first in your category, you win. And if you can’t be first, you have to change the category. When a brand is first to market a product, it owns the category. For example, we call most facial tissue “Kleenex,” even if it’s a box of Puffs. We do the same thing with Q-tips. These are not products; they are brand names. But because those brands were first to market, they now own the category.

This is true in your space as well. Who was first? They likely own the lion’s share of the attention, and it’s going to be very difficult to shift the focus from them onto you. Don’t try. It’s a waste of energy. Rather, find a new category in which you can be first.

For example, who was the second person to fly a nonstop transatlantic flight from the US to Europe? If you ask a group of people, a decent number of them will know it was Charles Lindbergh. But the second? No one ever remembers second place. Why would you?

We actually do know who the second person was, and here’s where things get interesting. It was Amelia Earhart, who is arguably more famous than Charles Lindbergh.

But Amelia Earhart is not known as the second person to fly across the Atlantic in an airplane without stopping. She’s known as the first woman.

That’s what changing the category is all about

You and I already own a category called “our work” that nobody else can compete with. Last week, we called this your mixtape. The problem occurs when we fixate on other people’s categories, areas in which other people or organizations have already arrived in the first-place spot. We are never going to beat them. What we need to do is find a new category that we can dominate.

One way to do this is to take two categories that are quite different and combine them. Apple does this, creating well-engineered products that were also beautifully designed. You can do the same by finding two leading brands or groups of people in your industry, asking yourself what single thing they do well, and then combining those two things into something new and useful.

Hamlet, but with lions

This is true in literature and art as well. The same stories keep getting repeated over and over again, just with new spins. Did you know that The Lion King nearly didn’t get greenlit for production because the executives were skeptical? No one got it, and it wasn't approved until someone in the meeting said, “Wait, this is like Hamlet, but with lions.”

Hamlet. As in that four-hundred-year-old play by Shakespeare that has proven its relevance over and over again to new audiences. We know Hamlet works. But to just do another Hamlet is not interesting. It’s expected. Adding lions to the mix makes it unique, doesn’t it?

My challenge to you this week is to go forth and categorize yourself. Find out where you belong, get really clear on the boundaries of your space, and then get ready for next week…cause we’re about to blow the whole thing wide open. Scattergories, indeed.

The post Categories, Scattergories first appeared on Jeff Goins.

Hey Creator: Categories, Scattergories

All creative work starts with category

One of the first questions my team and I ask our first-time author clients is this: “What kind of book is it?”

Rarely do they know the answer. They’ll say something like “a good one” or “one that will help everybody.”

But that doesn’t work. Readers don’t want to be one of many any more than authors do. We all want to be unique. We want to feel special. And we are. But all specialness begins with belonging: writers must first step into a space, some category or genre to which we would like to belong.

The reassuring news for creators is that truly inspiring art doesn’t stay in whatever category it begins. To paraphrase a quote attributed to Picasso, “Learn the rules like a pro so you can break them like an artist.” This is how you stand out, how you create a perennial seller, how you launch a sincere blockbuster.

Why is this the case?

If you are competing with someone who already owns an idea in the marketplace, trying to beat them won’t work. Al Ries calls this The Law of the First in his book The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing.

The idea here is that if you are first in your category, you win. And if you can’t be first, you have to change the category. When a brand is first to market a product, it owns the category. For example, we call most facial tissue “Kleenex,” even if it’s a box of Puffs. We do the same thing with Q-tips. These are not products; they are brand names. But because those brands were first to market, they now own the category.

This is true in your space as well. Who was first? They likely own the lion’s share of the attention, and it’s going to be very difficult to shift the focus from them onto you. Don’t try. It’s a waste of energy. Rather, find a new category in which you can be first.

For example, who was the second person to fly a nonstop transatlantic flight from the US to Europe? If you ask a group of people, a decent number of them will know it was Charles Lindbergh. But the second? No one ever remembers second place. Why would you?

We actually do know who the second person was, and here’s where things get interesting. It was Amelia Earhart, who is arguably more famous than Charles Lindbergh.

But Amelia Earhart is not known as the second person to fly across the Atlantic in an airplane without stopping. She’s known as the first woman.

That’s what changing the category is all about

You and I already own a category called “our work” that nobody else can compete with. Last week, we called this your mixtape. The problem occurs when we fixate on other people’s categories, areas in which other people or organizations have already arrived in the first-place spot. We are never going to beat them. What we need to do is find a new category that we can dominate.

One way to do this is to take two categories that are quite different and combine them. Apple does this, creating well-engineered products that were also beautifully designed. You can do the same by finding two leading brands or groups of people in your industry, asking yourself what single thing they do well, and then combining those two things into something new and useful.

Hamlet, but with lions

This is true in literature and art as well. The same stories keep getting repeated over and over again, just with new spins. Did you know that The Lion King nearly didn’t get greenlit for production because the executives were skeptical? No one got it, and it wasn't approved until someone in the meeting said, “Wait, this is like Hamlet, but with lions.”

Hamlet. As in that four-hundred-year-old play by Shakespeare that has proven its relevance over and over again to new audiences. We know Hamlet works. But to just do another Hamlet is not interesting. It’s expected. Adding lions to the mix makes it unique, doesn’t it?

My challenge to you this week is to go forth and categorize yourself. Find out where you belong, get really clear on the boundaries of your space, and then get ready for next week…cause we’re about to blow the whole thing wide open. Scattergories, indeed.

—Jeff

Genre is disappearing. What comes next? (The New Yorker)

​7 of the best books in the meta genre of writing about writing.

Why have some of music’s greatest artists (Bob Marley, Diana Ross, Jimi Hendrix) never won a Grammy? They don’t fit into ANY of the (83!) categories.​

​Use your Enneagram type to become a prolific creator. (This artist did it, and Sleeping At Last created a whole album of Enneagram songs.)

I write about several different subjects, ranging from finance to time management and personal blogging about my life. But I also write fiction. I want to include all these interests (and more!), but I don’t know if that’s too much. Do I stick to one niche/genre? I don’t feel like I belong to any specific group at all! Am I a good fit for a personal brand? —Sarah

No. But that’s because personal brands aren’t a good fit for anyone. Or rather, what that means is shifting.

It used to be that if you had a blog and a pulse, you could build a following around your online identity. We called this a personal brand, but often what it did was trap the writer in a very specific niche that didn’t leave much room for growth.

Instead of trying to fit into a personal brand, I recommend beginning with a worldview. What do you notice that’s wrong with the world that you want to fix? What unique perspective do you have that’s worth sharing? Start with a single topic—some area you want to start in that leaves room for growth.

Once you know where you’re starting, find a convention—some rule everyone follows in your industry—and break it. Challenge it. Downright disagree when appropriate. Pick a fight, and let everyone see you do it.

Maybe this looks like you contradicting a leading voice in your field. Maybe it means combining two categories in a new way. People don’t talk about good ideas; they talk about interesting ideas. Find a way to be interesting, which (as you remember from above) always begins with first fitting in.

Tl;dr—start with a single topic, pick a fight with something you think is BS, and challenge it in a way that represents your worldview. The formula I like to use is this:

Everyone thinks X, but what’s actually true is Y.

For example, let’s say you pick personal finance. You could say something like, “Everyone thinks a budget is necessary, but what’s actually true is budgets reinforce a poverty mindset.” Don’t be afraid to be provocative; in fact, you often need to be provocative to get attention these days.

Keep me posted. —Jeff

Coming soon, the Hey, Creator! podcast. Every Tuesday, we'll riff on this week's newsletter and talk more about what it's like to make interesting art and live an interesting life. Check out the trailer here.

​“One wants to be a needle in a haystack, not the haystack.” —Don Draper

Chantel, who is a 9, and has thus previously tested as every other number depending on her mood and categorically insists that she can’t be categorized.

Sandy, who is a 1 and always does things the right way. On time. No exceptions—including migrating our entire online community from Facebook to Circle this week. Come hang out with your fellow creators here!​

Matt, who is a 3, which explains why his hair (and this newsletter) always look so good.

Will, who is part 3 and part 6, which means he is loyal to nothing except getting this issue out the door on time.

The post Hey Creator: Categories, Scattergories first appeared on Jeff Goins.

On Mixtapes, or Curation vs. Creation

One of my favorite things in the world is to create playlists. In my mind, there is no greater gift to another person. Back in the day, we used to call these “mixtapes,” as they were made of actual tape.

They could signify anything. A curation of acoustic ballads might say “I like you, do you like me?” while a pop-punk medley of breakup songs could be a reminder to delete this person’s number from your phone.

A good mixtape, in my mind, always has a theme. It builds towards an ultimate climax, then resolves. Every lyric must mean something, though rarely what the original artist intended. It is not just a curation but an interpretation.

The mixtape is personal, telling you as much about the one who made it as the one it’s made for. And it is eclectic, mixing in different styles that somehow fit together.

I love mixtapes because they are the perfect metaphor for creative work. With a mixtape, I have to use other people’s words, ideas, and stories to communicate my message. I am not dealing with my own source material, which is true for all of us.

We are always using someone else’s stuff, playing with what came before and rearranging it to say something new.

Take Jim Henson, for example. Throughout his career, he took special care to credit his childhood idol Burr Tillstrom for doing more to put puppets on television than the maker of the Muppets ever did. That’s coming from the man who invented Sesame Street and Yoda, mind you.

If Henson, who was affected significantly by the live puppet shows he saw as a traveling college student in Europe, cannot escape the influence of others, maybe we’d do well to notice the inspiration around us, too.

We are all borrowing from others

No artist works entirely in isolation. Even Vincent van Gogh, the iconic lone genius, was surrounded by others who inspired and influenced him. We all stand on the shoulders of giants* in hopes of honoring what we inherited and making it better.

Let’s not forget that Michelangelo’s very first commission was an actual forgery, a statue he pawned off on a cardinal who eventually discovered the deceit and was so impressed that he hired the young artist. Stealing is an innate and necessary part of the job, but the difference between the artist and the amateur is the former knows how to do it well.

With all due and deserved respect to Austin Kleon, it is not a creative thing to simply steal. Borrowing from others is inevitable; what makes a person an artist is what they choose to take and how. There are, after all, a lot of copycats out there, making noise without really saying anything. You don’t want to do that.

We don’t need more thieves; we need better thinkers

Take a minute to watch a handful of clips from Kukla, Fran, and Ollie on YouTube, and you’ll see that the work of Henson is much more sophisticated than that of his predecessor. And yet, without the work of the former, we would never have the latter. We all start out stealing, but the best artists don’t stay there.

An editor once told me when I wanted to include every obscure reference behind my book idea, “No one is paying to read that crap.” More precisely, they are paying to not read that crap. He told me to bury my esoteric ego-scratching in my endnotes, and only if absolutely necessary. But I’d be better off just deleting them altogether.

Curation is not the inclusion of every possible thing you could add; it is the exclusion of anything that doesn’t clearly convey your message. A good artist is recognized not in what she includes but in what she leaves out.

How to be an “original”

To be an “original,” you must first internalize your influences, then blend those voices in a way that we’ve never quite heard before. As the historian Will Durant said, “Nothing is new except arrangement. Give credit where credit is due, yes, but also find your way of expressing what others have shared before”.

The best creation is curation. It is a mix of styles and approaches. Your portfolio of work is your mixtape: a blend of old and new, a combination of what we expect and what we could never imagine.

It’s the work of any good student: a throwback, an homage, a portfolio. It is Jack White confessing all he ever did for rock music is try to play the blues, and Quentin Tarantino admitting to stealing the greatest tropes from cinema to make his own films.

Success in the Creator Economy is not so much about making something new as it is about sifting through what is already available and deciding which pieces get to come through. When we think of our work like this, it becomes less of a struggle to invent something unprecedented and instead a challenge in what to pay attention to.

So, what are you reading? Which influences are you allowing into your field of awareness, and what are you willing to let go? What’s distracting you, and what is that telling you about your work? What will you actually contribute to the conversation?

* This quote is often attributed to Sir Isaac Newton but was first said by Blaise Pascal. Then again, maybe it was Diego de Estella. Or was it Bernard of Chartres? Anyway, there are a lot of rules 

The post On Mixtapes, or Curation vs. Creation first appeared on Jeff Goins.

Hey Creator: On Mixtapes, or Curation vs. Creation

One of my favorite things in the world is to create playlists. In my mind, there is no greater gift to another person. Back in the day, we used to call these “mixtapes,” as they were made of actual tape.

They could signify anything. A curation of acoustic ballads might say “I like you, do you like me?” while a pop-punk medley of breakup songs could be a reminder to delete this person’s number from your phone.

A good mixtape, in my mind, always has a theme. It builds towards an ultimate climax, then resolves. Every lyric must mean something, though rarely what the original artist intended. It is not just a curation but an interpretation.

The mixtape is personal, telling you as much about the one who made it as the one it’s made for. And it is eclectic, mixing in different styles that somehow fit together.

I love mixtapes because they are the perfect metaphor for creative work. With a mixtape, I have to use other people’s words, ideas, and stories to communicate my message. I am not dealing with my own source material, which is true for all of us.

We are always using someone else’s stuff, playing with what came before and rearranging it to say something new.

Take Jim Henson, for example. Throughout his career, he took special care to credit his childhood idol Burr Tillstrom for doing more to put puppets on television than the maker of the Muppets ever did. That’s coming from the man who invented Sesame Street and Yoda, mind you.

If Henson, who was affected significantly by the live puppet shows he saw as a traveling college student in Europe, cannot escape the influence of others, maybe we’d do well to notice the inspiration around us, too.

We are all borrowing from others

No artist works entirely in isolation. Even Vincent van Gogh, the iconic lone genius, was surrounded by others who inspired and influenced him. We all stand on the shoulders of giants* in hopes of honoring what we inherited and making it better.

Let’s not forget that Michelangelo’s very first commission was an actual forgery, a statue he pawned off on a cardinal who eventually discovered the deceit and was so impressed that he hired the young artist. Stealing is an innate and necessary part of the job, but the difference between the artist and the amateur is the former knows how to do it well.

With all due and deserved respect to Austin Kleon, it is not a creative thing to simply steal. Borrowing from others is inevitable; what makes a person an artist is what they choose to take and how. There are, after all, a lot of copycats out there, making noise without really saying anything. You don’t want to do that.

We don’t need more thieves; we need better thinkers

Take a minute to watch a handful of clips from Kukla, Fran, and Ollie on YouTube, and you’ll see that the work of Henson is much more sophisticated than that of his predecessor. And yet, without the work of the former, we would never have the latter. We all start out stealing, but the best artists don’t stay there.

An editor once told me when I wanted to include every obscure reference behind my book idea, “No one is paying to read that crap.” More precisely, they are paying to not read that crap. He told me to bury my esoteric ego-scratching in my endnotes, and only if absolutely necessary. But I’d be better off just deleting them altogether.

Curation is not the inclusion of every possible thing you could add; it is the exclusion of anything that doesn’t clearly convey your message. A good artist is recognized not in what she includes but in what she leaves out.

How to be an “original”

To be an “original,” you must first internalize your influences, then blend those voices in a way that we’ve never quite heard before. As the historian Will Durant said, “Nothing is new except arrangement. Give credit where credit is due, yes, but also find your way of expressing what others have shared before”.

The best creation is curation. It is a mix of styles and approaches. Your portfolio of work is your mixtape: a blend of old and new, a combination of what we expect and what we could never imagine.

It’s the work of any good student: a throwback, an homage, a portfolio. It is Jack White confessing all he ever did for rock music is try to play the blues, and Quentin Tarantino admitting to stealing the greatest tropes from cinema to make his own films.

Success in the Creator Economy is not so much about making something new as it is about sifting through what is already available and deciding which pieces get to come through. When we think of our work like this, it becomes less of a struggle to invent something unprecedented and instead a challenge in what to pay attention to.

So, what are you reading? Which influences are you allowing into your field of awareness, and what are you willing to let go? What’s distracting you, and what is that telling you about your work? What will you actually contribute to the conversation?

Hit reply and let me know. I look forward to listening.

Remixedly yours,

Jeff

* This quote is often attributed to Sir Isaac Newton but was first said by Blaise Pascal. Then again, maybe it was Diego de Estella. Or was it Bernard of Chartres? Anyway, there are a lot of rules 

“Now, the making of a good compilation tape is a very subtle art. Many do’s and don’ts. First of all, you’re using someone else’s poetry to express how you feel. This is a delicate thing… like breaking up, is hard to do and takes ages longer than it might seem. You gotta kick off with a killer, to grab attention. Then you got to take it up a notch, but you don’t wanna blow your wad, so then you got to cool it off a notch. There are a lot of rules.” —Rob Gordon (John Cusack) in High Fidelity, based on the novel by Nick Hornby (watch the twin scenes from the movie based on a book that also inspired a Hulu series)

From Patti Smith to Bob Dylan, some of music’s best lyrics are stolen directly from literature. (Should this be allowed?)​

“An Italian visual artist recently sold an invisible sculpture for over $18,000.” It’s an original idea…but is it also fraud?​

Advice from the NYT on how to make a great playlist. Plus, Buzzfeed can tell you what kind of dater you are based on the songs in your breakup playlist.

​Where do pronouns come from? (The Atlantic)

​Everything is a remix.​

I often find that other writers express ideas more succinctly. I usually “borrow” phrases from them. This is my concern. I do want to give credit where credit is due, but borrowing a word or phrase — I am not sure if it deserves a footnote every time I borrow. — Emmanuel

Emmanuel! You’re in great company. We writers are always inspired by the writing of our peers and heroes, and of course, this whole issue of HC is about borrowing as a means to creation. Consider the trendy “We can do hard things,” which took off on a global scale when Glennon Doyle’s Untamed came out in 2019.

She’d actually been saying it for 20 years by that point, and it’s not even her phrase to begin with, so do we need to cite her every time we repeat it? No. It’s part of common parlance these days—so much so that it’s shown up in Hillary Clinton’s Twitter feed, local governments’ responses to the pandemic, and approximately 500 Etsy search results for throw pillows. Similar phrases spring to mind:

kill your darlingssh*tty first draftstart with whyhero’s journeywhat I know for suregreat artists steal

We can all trace the source of these phrases without too much effort, AND they’re such an accepted part of our everyday communications that we’re safe to use them without adding footnotes every time. If these are the kinds of phrases you’re thinking of when you’re borrowing from others, know that a lot of other writers are doing it, too, and it’s fine.

That said, read that last sentence again: a lot of other writers are doing it, too, and it’s fine. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I imagine you want more for your writing than this.

Cliches are cliches for a reason. Did your breath catch in wonder reading any of those popular phrases up there? Did you see the world anew, feel inspired, sit up straighter, feel your chest explode into stars like it did the first time you read a beautiful sentence? If not, consider that this same deadness is happening in your readers when they see borrowed phrases in your work.

If they’ve read it before—even if it’s more succinct than you think you could’ve said it—their minds are going to wander, and they’re going to miss the chance to be truly changed by what you have to say. In their writing, they’re going to quote your heroes instead of you. And we will all miss out on what could’ve been.

Your readers are with you for your words, not someone else’s, so while I encourage and celebrate finding inspiration in others, I’ll also challenge you to bring more and more of your own voice to the conversation.

It doesn’t need to be more succinct to be better. It just needs to sound like you. When it does, watch your readers begin quoting you back to yourself, their mouths forming the shape of your words as they summon their own voices from the dark. You can be their lantern.

—Chantel

P.S. Have a question or thought you’d like us to tackle in a future issue? Send it to our community leader Sandy ( sandy@goinswriter.com ).

For your next writing session, long walk, or intellectual dinner party, Jeff made you a mixtape: Celebration of Curation​

Jeff, the OG, who re-created literally everything about himself since the last time he sent out a newsletter. Like, even his guacamole recipe.

Chantel, the editor, who spends so much time reading articles on the internet that we had to collect them in a regular section of this newsletter.

Sandy, the community facilitator, who always knows exactly what y’all want to know. (Send her your questions for the next issue!)

Will, the marketing guru, who made sure you knew about this newsletter in time, and who also told us to be funnier.

Matt, the startup guy, who is smack-dab in the middle of living his dream as a full-time creator while discovering he's still the same person, for better or worse.

The post Hey Creator: On Mixtapes, or Curation vs. Creation first appeared on Jeff Goins.

On the Art of Re-Creation

For the past nine and a half years, I’ve been working as an author and teacher, inspiring the creative class to make their work more interesting when all the while, I myself was leading a life that, well, wasn’t all that interesting. At least to me, it wasn’t.

Sure, it looked good on the outside—big house, lots of money, the occasional stranger stopping me on the street to say hi—but something was missing. I was doing my best, but my life felt boring. Tame. Suburban.

It wasn’t a bad life by any stretch of the imagination. Many would have approved of it—I was a good dad, paid my bills on time, took my wife on dates—but deep down, I felt listless. Drifting through life without any clear direction or destination.

What, if anything, could make me happy if not the so-called “good” life? As I pondered my own lack of motivation, a question arose in me, one I had heard before and it came screaming back into my consciousness: “Is the life I’m living the one that wants to live in me?” Or in other words:

Am I living in a way that is worthy of my own respect, or am I just doing what I think others would approve of?

My life changed, not in the way that it does at a weekend seminar with a guru shouting at you, but slowly and intentionally.

I started going for long walks every morning and taking up amateur mountain biking. I took my kids on little adventures and fell in love with life all over again, rediscovering nature and cooking and… myself.

What I am learning through all of this is that change is always happening. We do not reinvent ourselves in a single swoop. Evolution is a constant and inevitable human institution.

People, if you really watch them, are always shifting from one shade of something into another. And this is true for yourself, as well. When the story of your life no longer matches the role you want to play, it’s time to re-write the script.

I call this “re-creation.” The act of creating something again, over and over, which we do our entire lives. The human body itself is a biological organism that is actually a complex set of systems and cells always dying and being replaced.

We all are walking resurrections, experiencing rebirth constantly.

We are not just creations, however. We are also creators. As artists, we create books and ideas and businesses. But we are also the makers of our own lives, imagining what could be and bringing it into existence.

Yes, there is undeserved hardship and trauma that we have to deal with; there is privilege to consider and social inequities to grapple with. But we all, in some way, get to choose what we will tolerate and what we are willing to change.

So what do we do?

First, we acknowledge what’s not working. What bothers you right now? What vision for your life or work has yet to unfold the way you thought it would? What hidden curiosity have you yet to explore? What are you afraid to try?

For the past year, I’ve been on a journey of rediscovering and re-creating myself. It’s been wonderful. Now, it’s time to share with you what it all means.

In other words, I’m back. We’re back, all of us, trying to make sense of what we do with now and who we become after such a strange year of unexpected change.

This newsletter, which my team and I have dubbed “Hey Creator” will be a compilation of helpful resources and notes from around the web, along with inspiring stories from the New Renaissance, all with the intent to help you live a more creative life.

This means not only new essays and a brand new podcast, but also all kinds of links to resources and content of what other creators like you are up to. My goal is to provide the platform I’d want to hang out on even if I weren’t responsible for publishing it.

So, hello. This is not a “welcome back” as much as it is simply a “welcome.” Let’s have a dialogue. I’d love to hear from you, what you’re about, and what you’re looking for.

If you’ve experienced your own creative renaissance lately, if you’ve ever reinvented yourself or renegotiated your life in any way, I want to hear about it. I don’t know exactly what’s next for you or me or this weird world that is maybe, slowly going back to normal (or not).

But I do know that we’re doing this, and the best is yet to come. And that’s enough for now. Next week, we’ll be sharing what it means to disappear and come back, how we can reinvent ourselves, and other good news from around the planet.

The post On the Art of Re-Creation first appeared on Jeff Goins.