The Practice: Shipping Creative Work

by Seth Godin

Selling is simply a dance with possibility and empathy. It requires you to see the audience you’ve chosen to serve, then to bring them what they need. They might not realize it yet, but once you engage with them, either you’ll learn what’s not working in your craft or they’ll learn that you’ve created something that they’ve been waiting for, something that is filled with magic.

This is why so many people have trouble with the idea of trusting themselves. Because they’re bad at selling themselves on the commitment to the process.

The process of engaging with our genre, our audience, and the change we seek to make is enough. Where we stand is under our control. The practice is something we can return to whenever we choose. Becoming unattached doesn’t eliminate our foundation. It gives us one.

Our job is to be generous, as generous as we know how to be, with our work.

Art is the human act of doing something that might not work and causing change to happen. Work that matters. For people who care.

There’s no need to know the details of the practice before we begin. We can’t know the recipe because there isn’t a recipe: recipes are always outcome dependent. The specific outcome is not the primary driver of our practice. If we obsess about the outcome, we’re back to looking for an industrial recipe, not a way to create art.

The more important the project we take on, the more difficult it is to find certainty that our work will succeed before we begin.

We can begin with this: If we failed, would it be worth the journey? Do you trust yourself enough to commit to engaging with a project...

The first step is to separate the process fr...

The time we spend worrying is actually time we’re spending trying to control something that is out of our control.

Time invested in something that is within our control is called work. That’s where our most productive focus lies. Worrying isn’t productive because it doesn’t produce confidence, and even if it did, the confidence wouldn’t last. Worrying is a way to hide from the fact that we are wavering on our practice.

The reason is simple: we need an infinite amount of reassurance, delivered daily, to build up our confidence. There will never be enough. Instead of seeking reassurance and buttressing it with worry...

The practice is choice plus skill plus attitude. We can learn it and we can do it again. We don’t ship the work because we’re creative.

Better clients demand better work. Better clients want you to push the envelope, win awards, and challenge their expectations. Better clients pay on time. Better clients talk about you and your work. But

lousy clients don’t want you to do better work. They are lousy clients for a reason. They don’t want better work. They want a cheap commodity, or something popular. They want to cut corners, or ignore deadlines, or avoid the risk of doing something new.

Who are you trying to change? What change are you trying to make? How will you know if it worked?

the more different the person you serve is from you, the more empathy you’ll need to create the change you seek to make.

What do they believe? What do they want? Who do they trust? What’s their narrative? What will they tell their friends?

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. Not to all people, not to create something that is beyond criticism, but for this person, this set of beliefs, this tribe. Once you can put yourself on the hook to commit to who you are serving, you can find the empathy to make something for them.

To cause change to happen, we have to stop making things for ourselves and trust the process that enables us to make things for other people.

the mythology of creativity

Determine who it’s for. Learn what they believe, what they fear, and what they want. Be prepared to describe the change you seek to make. At least to yourself. Care enough to commit to making that change. Ship work that resonates with the people it’s for. Once you know whom it’s for and what it’s for, watch and learn to determine whether your intervention succeeded. Repeat.

Actions matter more today than ever before. We can see your work, hear your words, and understand your intent. Today, we can go beyond the credential and actually see your impact.

Two questions about your narrative: 1. Is it closely aligned to what’s actually happening in the world?

Is it working? Is the narrative you use helping you achieve your goals? Because that’s what it’s for.

writer’s block is simply a side effect of our narrative. It’s not an actual physical or organic ailment, simply a story we tell ourselves, one that leads to bad work habits and persistent fear.

If the practice you’ve developed isn’t getting you what you are after, you can politely walk away from it. If the audience you’ve worked so hard to build trust with is making it clear that your vision doesn’t match theirs, you can move on. It’s fine to experience regret when we abandon a sunk cost. It’s a mistake to stick with one simply because we can’t bear the regret.

You are not your work. Your work is a series of choices made with generous intent to cause something to happen. We can always learn to make better choices.

We don’t write because we feel like it. We feel like it because we write.

Desirable difficulty is the hard work of doing hard work. Setting ourselves up for things that cause a struggle, because we know that after the struggle, we’ll be at a new level.

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. Meetings are a safe haven, a refuge from what might happen. In every meeting, your work will interact with others. 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. On the other hand, if you go to meetings with people who have an agenda around maintaining status roles, the status quo, and deniability, then the opposite is going to happen.

Too often, we wait until we’re sure we’re right. Better to begin with an assertion. And then find out.

What are the implications, ramifications, and side effects of what you plan to do? What are your contingency plans? What will happen if it works? (And if it doesn’t?)

The professional creative works to change the culture. Not all of the culture, certainly, but a pocket of it. And culture is a conspiracy. It’s the voluntary engagement of humans in search of connection and safety. Your assertion begins a cultural shift, because it’s an invitation for coconspirators to join you.

To be the best in the world means that someone with options and information will choose you. Because your version of “best” matches what they seek, and because you’re in their consideration set (their world).

The point is not to copy, but in fact to avoid copying. Our best commercial work reminds people of what they’ve seen before. Creativity doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes.

All creative work has constraints, because all creativity is based on using existing constraints to find new solutions.

Art solves problems in a novel way, and problems always have constraints.

When we trust ourselves, we’re focused on the process, not the outcome. The process of doing our work and paying attention to the outcome without requiring it to happen. The process of preparation and revision. And the process of caring enough to contribute. Trusting yourself doesn’t create overconfidence, because you’re focused on the process, not on making promises you can’t keep.

In fact, overconfidence is one of the symptoms that you might not trust yourself yet. Because overconfidence, like all forms of resistance, is a way to hide. Don’t sabotage the work by ignoring the practice. Trust yourself to find a way forward, but seek out the resilience you’ll need to persist as the practice continues.

Trusting yourself doesn’t require delusional self-confidence. Trusting yourself has little to do with the outcome. Instead, we can learn to trust the process. This is at the heart of our practice. We can develop a point of view, learn to see more clearly, and then ship our work (and ship it again, and again). We don’t do it to win, we do it to contribute. Because it’s an act of generosity, not selfishness, we can do it for all the best reasons. The practice is its own reward.

Your work is never going to be good enough (for everyone). But it’s already good enough (for someone). Committing to a practice that makes our best better is all we can do.

You are in charge of how you spend your time. In charge of the questions you ask. In charge of the insight that you produce.

The path forward is about curiosity, generosity, and connection. These are the three foundations of art. Art is a tool that gives us the ability to make things better and to create something new on behalf of those who will use it to create the next thing. Human connection is exponential: it scales as we create it, weaving together culture and possibility where none used to exist. You have everything you need to make magic. You always have. Go make a ruckus.