The Practice: Shipping Creative Work

by Seth Godin

The Bhagavad-Gita says, “It is better to follow your own path, however imperfectly, than to follow someone else’s perfectly.”

Attitudes are skills.

Professionals produce with intent.

We become creative when we ship the work.

important work, the instructions are always insufficient. For the work we’d like to do, the reward comes from the fact that there is no guarantee, that the path isn’t well lit, that we cannot possibly be sure it’s going to work.

[Making the world a better place through art] is the highest attainment of the specialization.

Art is the generous act of making things better by doing something that might not work.

Your work is too important to be left to how you feel today. On the other hand, committing to an action can change how we feel. If we act as though we trust the process and do the work, then the feelings will follow. Waiting for a feeling is a luxury we don’t have time for.

If you want to change your story, change your actions first.

If we condition ourselves to work without flow, it’s more likely to arrive. It all comes back to trusting our self to create the change we seek. We don’t agree to do that after flow arrives. We do the work, whether we feel like it or not, and then, without warning, flow can arise. Flow is a symptom of the work we’re doing, not the cause of it.

“Do what you love” is for amateurs. “Love what you do” is the mantra for professionals.

Lost in this obsession with outcome is the truth that outcomes are the results of process. Good processes, repeated over time, lead to good outcomes more often than lazy processes do.

to have a better boss is to have a boss who raises the bar for us but still gives us a break when we fail. What we need is a boss who is diligent and patient and insightful.

the intent of being of service, of making things better, of building something that matters—is an essential part of the pattern.

Identity fuels action, and action creates habits, and habits are part of a practice, and a practice is the single best way to get to where you seek to go.

the only way to have a commitment is to begin.

The practice requires a commitment to a series of steps, not a miracle.

The world conspires to hold us back, but it can’t do that without our permission.

Artists have a chance to make things better by making better things.

Of course you’re allowed to sound like you. Everyone else is taken.

Ideas shared are ideas that spread, and ideas that spread change the world.

When Was the Last Time You Did Something for the First Time?

Your discomfort is no excuse for being inhospitable. Our practice is to bring a practical empathy to the work, to realize that in our journey to create change, we’re also creating discomfort. For our audience. And for ourselves. And that’s okay.

It might be that the most generous thing to do is to disappoint someone in the short run.

Generous doesn’t always mean saying yes to the urgent or failing to prioritize. Generous means choosing to focus on the change we seek to make.

accepted and admired by a specific circle of people.”

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.

To a drowning man, everyone else is a stepping-stone to safety.

On being selfish

The ability to eagerly suggest an alternative to your work is a sign that your posture is one of generosity, not grasping.

Gratitude isn’t a problem. But believing we’re owed gratitude is a trap.

There’s no promise that the world cares about your mission.

We don’t ship the work because we’re creative. We’re creative because we ship the work.

Talent is something we’re born with: it’s in our DNA, a magical alignment of gifts. But skill? Skill is earned. It’s learned and practiced and hard-won. It’s insulting to call a professional talented. She’s skilled, first and foremost. Many people have talent, but only a few care enough to show up fully, to earn their skill. Skill is rarer than talent. Skill is earned. Skill is available to anyone who cares enough.

If you want to get in shape, it’s not difficult. Spend an hour a day running or at the gym. Do that for six months or a year. Done. That’s not the difficult part. The difficult part is becoming the kind of person who goes to the gym every day.

Relates to Atomic Habit concept from James Clear

Money supports our commitment to the practice. Money permits us to turn professional, to focus our energy and our time on the work, creating more impact and more connection, not less.

On being generous doesn't mean free.

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.

Who’s the work for? It might be possible to please everyone, but courageous art rarely tries.

We seek to create a change for the people we serve. The most effective way to do that is to do it on purpose.

How is it possible for three cowboys to herd a thousand cattle? Easy. They don’t. They herd ten cattle, and those cattle influence fifty cattle and those cattle influence the rest. That’s the way every single widespread movement/product/service has changed the world. And so we ignore all the others. We ignore the masses and the selfish critics and those in love with the status quo. First, find ten. Ten people who care enough about your work to enroll in the journey and then to bring others along.

The work itself is our client and we owe it something. This commitment can get out of hand. If we find ourselves out of balance, unable to sustain the effort, the work will suffer. But too often we find ourselves at the other extreme, seeking confidence or personal gratification and forgetting why we created the work in the first place.

The work is your client. It’s hired you to help you make a change happen. Getting paid for our work can confuse us, because it might seem that all we need to do is serve the person with a checkbook. But that’s the strategy of a hack—and it rarely leads to the contributions we set out to make in the first place.

A more generous approach would be: “This person is a billionaire. He has every toy, every house, every plane he could ever hope for. What he might be missing is status and legacy. What might mean more to him than anything he could get right now is the knowledge that for the next hundred years, generations of smart, up-and-coming young people will be saying his name. For him, two million dollars is a bargain.”

On being empathic to billionaire

We’re hiding because we’re afraid, because we don’t see the world the way the person we’re working with does.

The process of shipping creative work demands that we truly hear and see the dreams and desires of those we seek to serve.

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. We need the practical empathy of realizing that others don’t see what we see and don’t always want what we want.

Everything has a function.

What Engineers know.