The Practice: Shipping Creative Work

by Seth Godin

The industrial system that brainwashed us demands that we focus on outcomes to prove we followed the recipe. That priority makes sense if the reliable, predictable outcome really matters and the payoff is truly guaranteed. But what happens when your world changes? Suddenly, you don’t always get what was guaranteed. And the tasks you’re asked to do just aren’t as engaging as you’d like them to be. The emptiness of the bargain is now obvious: you were busy sacrificing your heart and your soul for prizes, but the prizes aren’t coming as regularly as promised. The important work, the work we really want to do, doesn’t come with a recipe. It follows a different pattern. This practice is available to us—not as a quick substitute, a recipe that’s guaranteed to return results, but as a practice. It is a persistent, stepwise approach that we pursue for its own sake and not because we want anything guaranteed in return. The recipe for recipes is straightforward: good ingredients, mise en place, attention to detail, heat, finish.