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First, find ten. Ten people who care enough about your work to enroll in the journey and then to bring others along.
The trap is in the generic. In the cloudy persona, the undetermined person, the vague generality.
Precisely which people? What do they believe?
Once we know who it’s for, it’s easier to accept that we have the ability and responsibility to bring positive change to that person.
put yourself on the hook to commit to who you are serving,
The work is your client. It’s hired you to help you make a change happen.
There’s a tension, the gap between what the work wants and what the person paying for it wants. Dancing in that gap is the work of creating our art.
someone wants to explore a new frontier, they’re going to need our help finding a creative way forward.
Someone, not everyone.
how can you use this smaller group to challenge you to go in the other direction instead? Toward better instead of more?
our hesitation is hiding. We’re hiding because we’re afraid, because we don’t see the world the way the person we’re working with does.
in her excitement, the entrepreneur has failed to see the world the way the prospect does.
The process of shipping creative work demands that we truly hear and see the dreams and desires of those we seek to serve.
our work begins with another simple question, repeated recursively, until we figure out the next step.
What is this element of our project for? This is intentional action.
this bridge will definitely not fall down. It’s math.
novelists unsure whether or not their book is going to work.
in the absence of math, it’s easy to weasel our way around the purpose of...
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Everything has a function. Every element of the bridge or the spaceship is there for a reason, even if the reason is decorative.
Find a who, make an assertion, and execute your work to deliver on that promise.
find a good reason
know what you’re trying to ...
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define the contribution of the receptionist in terms of the “what’s it for,” then becoming a great contributor is straightforward.
a receptionist can have a huge impact on the marketing of an organization.
everything we do, it’s not merely a job. It’s for something.
The alignment of the who and the what are the first step.
The enrollment of the people in the room permits her to get right to work.
Software like this, then, either exists to be the usual kind and mostly invisible, or it exists to spread the word through delight and connection.
Neither is right or better. They for a specific audience. The purpose defines the design. Find your audience, find their reason, and start building for them.
Instead of making paintings to please the skeptics, she made art for people who were enrolled in the path toward the new.
as intentional as any engineer, architect, or software designer.
That’s a mistake, of course: you can’t command people to feel what you want them to feel.
All we can do is choose the right people, bring them the right work in the right way with the right intent,
and then leave it to them to shift their em...
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If you’re going to Huntsville, it’s okay to ask for directions. You’re not offended if someone tells you that you’ve taken a wrong turn. It’s not personal and it’s not devastating. It’s simply helpful advice on how to get where you’re going. That’s not going to happen if you’re unwilling to tell us where you’re hoping to go.
Successful people, often without realizing it, ignore the ones that are less likely to “work,” and instead focus on the projects that are more likely to advance the mission.
get better at this pre-filtering. By doing it out loud. By writing out the factors that you’re seeking, or even by explaining to someone else
Mindfulness demands intention. Mindfulness is the practice of simply doing the work.
The easiest way to achieve this is to be clear about the purpose of the work.
By bringing her focus back to the purpose of the work,
work she wanted to do all along.
We do our best work with ...
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This is a practice. It has a purpose. I desire to create change. The change is for someone specific. How can I do it better? Can I persist long enough to do it again? Repeat.
There is nothing authentic about the next thing you’re going to say or do or write. It’s simply a calculated effort to engage with someone else, to contribute, or to cause a result.
the actions didn’t lead to the outcome he was hoping for (or perhaps they did).
Your audience doesn’t want your authentic voice. They want your consistent voice.
Simply work that rhymes. That sounds like you.
What we seek out is someone who sees us and consistently keeps their promises to bring us the magic we were hoping for.
When you trust yourself enough to turn pro, you’re entering into a covenant with those you seek to serve.
“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.”
We have lots of words for people who are proudly inauthentic. We call them professionals, champions, leaders, and heroes.
