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January 9 - January 15, 2020
If we want to realize our full potential as creatives and individuals, being proactive isn’t just an option, it’s a requirement.
identifying and creating new opportunities, cultivating your expertise over time, building collaborative relationships, and learning how to take risks.
opportunity and achievement do not flow from a sense of entitlement.
Your ability to realize your potential will depend upon your willingness to hone your skills, to take bold risks, and to put your ego on the line in pursuit of something greater.
We must seek out opportunity by strategizing with the resourcefulness and adaptability of a start-up entrepreneur, and we must draw opportunity to us by relentlessly developing our raw skills—excelling at our craft in a way that cannot go unnoticed.
We must look at the market and align our interests and abilities with something that people actually want. And we must keep an ear to the ground for the unexpected—never holding so tightly to our plans that we let luck pass us by.
Greatness doesn’t come from taking a “lean back” approach to career planning. Get out in front of opport...
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All humans are entrepreneurs not because all people should start companies, but because the will to create and forage and adapt is part of our DNA.
When you start a company, you make decisions in an information-poor, time-compressed, resource-constrained environment. There are no guarantees or safety nets; dealing with risk is inevitable.
If you have a strong passion and you want to go deep in that one place, go deep.
The more clarity you have in your stated mission, the better equipped you’ll be to adapt in a changing marketplace and to attract and assess new opportunities.
Opportunity is less about leaps forward and more about slow but steady progress.
We must adopt a mind-set that fosters constant growth, dedicate ourselves to the regular and rigorous practice of our craft, and track our setbacks and successes over time. We must set the bar high, raise it, and raise it again.
If you want to stand out in this world, stepping out of your comfort zone—and cultivating new skills—is the place to start.
Countless studies have shown that nothing interferes with your performance quite like anxiety does—it is the creativity killer.
Believing that your abilities are fixed is a self-fulfilling prophecy, and the self-doubt it creates will sabotage you in the end. Whether it’s intelligence, creativity, self-control, charm, or athleticism—the science shows our abilities to be profoundly malleable.
When it comes to mastering any skill, your experience, effort, and persistence matter a lot. Change really is always possible—there is no ability that can’t be developed with effort. So the next time you find yourself thinking, “But I’m just not good at this,” remember: you’re just not good at it yet.
We human beings are designed to move between spending and renewing energy. We’re at our best when we align with our internal rhythms. That means sleeping at night and being awake during the day. At night, we sleep in something called the Basic Rest Activity cycle—five stages, from light to deep sleep and back out again approximately every ninety minutes. This same cycle recapitulates itself during the day, except we move every ninety minutes from high physiological alertness progressively down into a state of fatigue.
A ritual is a highly precise behavior you do at a specific time so that it becomes automatic over time and no longer requires much conscious intention or energy.
A ritualized approach to practice helps conserve our precious and finite reserves of energy.
The ability to focus single-mindedly lies at the heart of mastering any challenge.
rest is a critical component of achieving sustainable excellence over time.
Sleep not only serves a restorative purpose but also allows the brain to more effectively consolidate and retain daytime learning.
Mastery is about regularly pushing yourself beyond your comfort zone, while also learning how to deeply restore and take care of yourself. Make rhythmic waves and you’ll not only get better at what you practice, you’ll also feel more in control of your life.
The way to get better at a skill is to force yourself to practice just beyond your limits.
Experts crave and thrive on immediate and constant feedback.
When I was training my memory, I kept meticulous spreadsheets to track my performance. They allowed me to see what was working and what wasn’t. Numbers don’t lie.
Your health, your productivity, and the growth of your career are all shaped by the things you do each day—most by habit, not by choice.
The key to changing a habit is to realize the ineffectiveness of willpower.
Consistency means that you try to do a habit the same way each time.
With focus and consistency you can change your habits. By changing your habits, you reprogram the behaviors that control most of your life and ultimately determine your success.
A diary can serve as a source of solace and inspiration, insight into emerging patterns, and motivation to reach new creative heights—if you know how to use it.
It can serve as a sounding board and an alter-ego companion—one who will never forget what you say. What might otherwise have been isolated or passing thoughts become permanent and potentially powerful ideas.
What a calendar cannot do, and a journal can, is help you reflect on the big picture of your life and your creative work—where it is, what it means, and what direction you want it to take.
By keeping a daily diary, you will reduce the chance that some later event will transform your memory of the day’s experiences.
So when you feel you have accomplished something, write it down soon, before a client or critic has the opportunity to say something that diminishes that sense of progress.
To hatch ideas big and small, and to make them happen, you need a mind clear of worry over “small stuff,” a sense of progress and direction, and a broad perspective on your life as it unfolds.
“Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom.”
The narratives of many creative people position their work as exclusively an individual pursuit. To ensure that you are optimizing your potential, consider recasting this narrative: Are you taking best advantage of the help that others can offer, and, more important, are you offering to others all the help you are capable of providing?
Things will go wrong. Honeymoons end. Promises get broken. Expectations don’t get met. By putting that on the table, you’re able now to discuss what the plan will be when it does go wrong.
If you don’t ask, you’ll never get.
You’ve just got to get over yourself. We live in a connection economy. If you can’t connect with people for them to understand what you have to offer, you’re working in a vacuum and you’re going to lose out.
The underlying spirit of networking is generosity.
You always want to be specific about what you’re asking for. Are you asking for a relationship? Are you asking for advice? Are you asking to follow up with them along the way, and occasionally reach out with a question? I think the best gauge for what’s fair to ask is flipping the tables: How would you feel if somebody approached you and asked this exact same thing? If you feel okay with it, then go ahead and do it. If you feel a little uncomfortable, then try to tweak it in a way that makes you feel okay about it.
Total strangers forced to work together can have problems exchanging ideas, but best friends aren’t that good for creativity, either.
Taken together, Dunbar’s and Uzzi and Spiro’s findings imply that the most successful creative projects are generated by teams that include a healthy mix of pre-existing connections, shared experiences, and totally new perspectives. If you’re looking to enhance your creative potential, then being on a team helps. But it’s not enough to be on any old team. You have to be on a team with the right blend of old and new collaborators.
Realizing your full creative potential—and that of others—demands the skills of the Master Builder rather than the architect, the jazz impresario rather than the conductor. Not just dreaming up visions, but doing the work of execution; not just solo creation, but co-creation with others; not just issuing commands, but collaborating with expert partners.
As Masters rose through the ranks, they did not retire to the corner office or a remote studio. They kept working with their own hands, perfecting their craft and leading by example as well as by authority.
Keep your “hand in,” even if you move into a management role. Doing this will have several benefits: (1) on a personal level, you’ll derive satisfaction from doing the work yourself, (2) it will deepen your understanding of the challenges faced by your team, and (3) since most creatives make judgments based on talent and achievement, you’ll maintain the respect of your team.
So hone your communication skills just as keenly as your craft. Learn to write clear e-mails and compelling copy; to deliver persuasive presentations; to chair a productive meeting; to make those “difficult” conversations go more smoothly. Invest time in networking and building strong working relationships (not the same as friendships). When someone on your team needs help, offer it—what goes around comes around.
