The Practice: Shipping Creative Work

by Seth Godin

The difficulty is real, and it’s desirable if our goal is to move forward.

To seek out desirable difficulty on our way to a place where our flow is actually productive in service of the change we seek to make.

You’re never done, and you’re never sure.

“merely do it.” Merely do the work without commentary or drama or anger.

Focus on the change you seek to make and bring intent to the craft.

continue to focus on process,

Chop wood, carry water. Anchor up. “Yes, and.” Ignore the parts you can’t control.

it’s far more effective to say, “I’ve finished this, and now I need to make it better.” Or possibly, “I finished this, and it can’t be made better, but now I’m ready to do the new thing, because look at all I’ve learned.”

your bad ideas is a useful way forward.

essential steps on the path to better.

Instead of focusing on a masterpiece, ask yourself, What’s the smallest unit of available genius?

How small can you make it and still do something you’re proud of?

It took a decade of building his craft and learning to see and to listen.

That’s what’s scarce. People who will draw up plans. People who will go first.

promises won’t lead to our destruction.

We can make

a sincere promise about the future if we believe we’ve got a shot at ...

We promise to ship, we don’t promise the result.

What these first rounds of public work do is establish to the creator that it’s survivable. Show up. Do your best. Learn from it.

Was Harry Potter not good when it was rejected by twelve publishers?

Good needs to be defined before you begin.

Good equal to quality in the context of the value for the audience. Who are you making it for? What do they need? Define quality, then judge good.

What’s it for and who’s it for?

The only way to get through the steps is to do the steps.

The people you bring your work to want to know what it rhymes with, what category it fits in, what they’re supposed to compare it to.

it’s a service to the person you’re seeking to change.

genre permits us to be original. It gives us a framework to push against.

genre, which gives your audience a clue as to what this work is about.

Begin with genre. Understand it. Master it. Then change it.

What makes us not a chimp is the last little bit.

That’s all you need.

The smallest viable bre...

It’s not that Gil’s songs are better than yours, or that Hemingway’s writing is better than yours. It’s that they shipped their work, and you hesitated.

There’s plenty of time to make it better later. Right now, your job is to make it.

Meetings are a great place to hide. Meetings are where we go to wait for someone else to take responsibility.

Take care with meetings. Why are you meeting? Positive or negative toward your work?

If you choose to go to meetings with people who are focused on expanding and amplifying your peculiar vision, then it’s likely that your work will get better.

Build streaks.

Find your streak and maintain it.

Talk about your streaks to k...

Seek the smallest viable...

Seek the most direct path instead.

Find and embrace genre.

Seek out desirable di...

Don’t talk about your dreams with people who want to protect you from heartache.

Think Sarah Blakely from spanx

Assertions are the foundation of the design and creation process.

Theories or hypotheses about what may happen or how the world could be. Starting point.

The practice demands assertions when there are no guarantees.

Ego is required for us to find the guts to make an assertion.

Assertions are the generous act of seeking to make things better.

Before you find an answer, you’ll need to make an assertion.

You need to press the buzzer before you know the answer

(but not before you realize that you have a process for getting to the answer).