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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Jeff Goins
Read between
October 23 - October 29, 2017
Before you can create great art, you first have to create yourself.
The best artists steal, but they do so elegantly, borrowing ideas from many sources and arranging them in new and interesting ways.
The way you establish your authority in a certain field is by mastering the techniques of those who are already authorities. And what eventually emerges over time is your own style.
They copy the work of both masters and peers—word by word, stroke by stroke, they mimic what they admire until those techniques become habitual. “Skill gets imprinted through action,” Twyla Tharp said.
As you watch and learn and eventually borrow from these influences, remember to do so in a way that honors them. Let your influences know you are learning from them and that they are inspiring you. Help them understand your motive, which is to build on the work, not pass it off as your own. And as much as possible, cite your sources, giving credit where credit is due. This won’t discredit you. It will likely endear you to your influences and your audience. Like Michelangelo, showing your ability to copy others’ work will prove that you did your homework. When you steal, don’t just copy and
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In a popular research paper, Duckworth wrote that grit “entails working strenuously toward challenges, maintaining effort and interest over years despite failure, adversity, and plateaus in progress. The gritty individual approaches achievement as a marathon; his or her advantage is stamina. Whereas disappointment or boredom signals to others that it is time to change trajectory and cut losses, the gritty individual stays the course.”
He was stubborn in the wrong things, losing the initial grit that had allowed him to persevere through early rejection. He forgot the big picture, which is that an artist’s job is not to be perfect but to be creating. This is a common pitfall among creatives, especially those of us working on what we believe to be our magnum opus. The work consumes us, leading to an unhealthy focus on the small things.
Jeff’s ethos that an entrepreneur must get comfortable with being misunderstood, which must be a great comfort every time they try something new.
step by step, ferociously.
Stubbornness gets in the way when it’s about you—your fame, your reputation, your success—but it becomes a tool when used to further your work.
Sometimes, when we see a creative person succeed, we dismiss his breakthrough as luck or the result of pure talent, but neither explanation is accurate. What often allows great work to get the attention it deserves is not a matter of only talent or luck but a matter of the will. Can you stick around long enough to see your work succeed? Do you have enough grit to take a few critical hits and keep going?
Behind many creative geniuses, there is often an invisible influencer—a patron—making it all happen. These people lend their resources and influence to help creative talents succeed, introducing them to opportunities they would not encounter otherwise. This is the Rule of the Patron, which states that before you reach an audience of many, you must first reach an audience of one. Every artist needs a patron. Without one, your success becomes exponentially more difficult; with one, it becomes not only possible but probable.
Our job, then, isn’t to wait for patrons to come to us but to find and cultivate these relationships, wherever they may be.
When we allow ourselves to be teachable, we attract those who would influence us and help our work spread.
Any job can be a means to making your art, if you have the right perspective. Employers become patrons when we begin to see them not as obstacles to the work we want to do but as a way of funding it.
A network is your insurance against anonymity. The greater access you have to influential people in your field, the further your work will spread. Of course, you have to be good, but being good is not enough. Skill gets you in front of the right people, but network magnifies your reach. Creative success, then, is contingent on your ability to connect well with those who can vouch for your work.
you build a network by giving more than you take. A network is not made by just connecting with the right people, but by connecting those people to each other. It’s not just who you know—it’s who you help. As you make these contributions, what you will create is a group of relationships—a network—that you can take with you wherever you go,
In the summer of 1525, when the artist was fifty years old, he was working on the Medici Chapel and Laurentian Library. More than a hundred stoneworkers worked for him as he served as chief architect of the Basilica di San Lorenzo. He managed a messy work site, a large labor force, and a complex business operation. For the last forty years of his life, Michelangelo oversaw hundreds of employees who helped him. He kept track of every detail, every scrap of paper, and recorded it all—even the purchasing of raw materials.
Four years ago, three people I barely knew got together and decided they wanted to start a peer group of local business leaders. Each person asked three other people to join the group, and that’s how twelve of us started meeting together every week to discuss our businesses and lives. We’ve been doing it ever since.
I can say without a doubt, this group has been the single greatest source of professional and personal growth for me in the past decade.
THE THRIVING ARTIST PRACTICES IN PUBLIC.
There was a risk of letting myself be seen. Like if they looked too closely, they’d discover I was a fraud. If I showed off my work, I’d be vulnerable to criticism or worse: silence. But if I embraced the risk that came with being seen, there was a huge reward waiting for me: the feeling of acknowledgment, of being noticed, of feeling heard. And most important, feeling worthy of being seen. That seemed so worth the risk.”
Promotion isn’t something an artist avoids; it’s an essential part of the job.
The Thriving Artist, on the other hand, chooses a different path: she shares her work by practicing in public. Not by being sleazy or self-promotional but by letting people simply watch her work.
This is what happens when we practice in public: we not only hone our abilities but attract an audience interested in what we’re sharing. The more we do this, the better we get, and the more confident we become. Eventually, people start to notice. This doesn’t mean we let them see every step of the process, but we have to put our work out there.
the Rule of the Audience, which says that before art can have an impact, it must first have an audience.
You don’t do your best work at rehearsal. You do your best when you have to: when you’re on stage in front of a live audience, when the publisher is waiting for the manuscript, when everyone is waiting for you to step up. Everything else is prologue. That’s not to say we shouldn’t pursue excellence or that we prematurely step into the spotlight. But it does mean the way we hone our craft is by doing it—not talking about it or studying it, but by getting to work. Thriving Artists do not wait for these opportunities to share; they seek them out.
As artists, we must value our work before others will.
When we undervalue our work, we end up playing the martyr, resenting the free gig halfway through the process. “When I notice myself resenting my clients and wanting to quit,” Melissa Dinwiddie said, “I realize I don’t need to quit. I just need to raise my prices. If you’re feeling resentment at all, you’re charging too little.”
Money becomes the means to doing more work.
CHARGING WHAT YOU’RE WORTH BEGINS WITH THE BELIEF THAT YOU’RE WORTH WHAT YOU CHARGE.
When we develop a diverse portfolio, we do better and more interesting work.
It’s embracing any opportunity to create something new and interesting and helpful. Like any Thriving Artist, he does a lot of things, and that ability to master multiple disciplines has made him very successful.
Walt Disney said, “I don’t make pictures just to make money. I make money to make more pictures.” This is what most of us want: not to get rich off our creations but to have enough time and freedom to create what we want. We want to have the means to focus on what matters to us.
