The Practice: Shipping Creative Work

by Seth Godin

Choose to make work that matters a great deal to someone. Develop an understanding of genre, work to see your audience’s dreams and hopes, and go as far out on the edge as they’re willing to follow. Choose to be peculiar.

Choose to commit to the journey, not to any particular engagement. Because you’re dancing on a frontier, it’s impossible that all of your work will resonate. That’s okay. Great work isn’t popular work; it’s simply work that was worth doing.

There’s a significant gap between what the market buys and what some consider worth engaging with.

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.

the tension that we dance with as creators. This is how we get sold on the thing we’re creating before we share it. We must sell ourselves on it first, before we can sell it to anyone else.

Enrollment is acknowledgment that we’re on a journey together. The Tin Man enrolls with Dorothy to go to see the Wizard. He has his own agenda. He’s after his own reward, as are the Scarecrow and the Lion. But even though each member of the troupe has their own goal in mind, they are all enrolled in the same journey, with the same agreed-upon roles and rules and, probably, time frames.

After enrollment, though, the shift goes from “you” to “we.” We are off to see the Wizard. We are engaged in this process, this journey, this performance. To the enrolled, all we need to do is point. We can gesture over there and the team will follow. They know what it’s for. To the unenrolled, though, all we can say is “Sorry, it’s not for you.”

The thoughtful alternative is resilience. To be okay no matter how the weather turns out, because the weather happens without regard for what we need. But what happens when we substitute the market acceptance of our new project for the weather? Or perhaps what the boss or the critics will think? When we get really attached to how others will react to our work, we stop focusing on our work and begin to focus on controlling the outcome instead.

Attachment to the outcome. Attachment to what a certain person is going to say about our next piece of work. Attachment to our perception of our standing in the community. We are in free fall. Always. Attachment pushes us to grab ahold of something. Attachment is about seeking a place to hide in a world that offers us little solace.

As soon as we stop looking for something to grab, our attention is freed up to go back to the practice, to go back to the work. The strongest foundation we can find is the realization that there isn’t a foundation. 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.

Becoming unattached doesn’t eliminate our foundation. It gives us one.

working in anticipation of what we’ll get in return takes us out of the world of self-trust and back into the never-ending search for reassurance and the perfect outcome.

The creativity you put into your work is an opportunity for better. It opens doors and turns on lights. It connects the disconnected and creates the bonds of culture. Art transforms the recipient, even as it allows individuals to become “us.” Art is the human act of doing something that might not work and causing change to happen. Work that matters. For people who care. Not for applause, not for money. But because we can. Art solves a problem for anyone who touches our work. This is the generous act of turning on a light. Not only does the light help you read, it helps everyone else in the room as well.

The practice is choice plus skill plus attitude. We can learn it and we can do it again.

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 put the effort into your practice, you will be rewarded with better. Better taste, better judgment, and better capabilities. In the words of Steve Martin: “I had no talent. None.”

Leaders make art and artists lead.

money is how our society signifies enrollment. The person who has paid for your scarce time and scarce output is more likely to value it, to share it, and to take it seriously.

If you’re leading, you’re searching for enrollment. For people who say “I see you and trust you and want to go where you are going.”

When we are generous with our work, we have the chance to earn trust and attention, and if we’re fortunate, we will find the people who are ready to go on our journey. Those people will eagerly pay, because what we offer them is scarce and precious.

The industrialized economy, which is now drawing to a close, was mostly about hiding your peculiarity. It was organized around cogs, replaceable parts, and the endless drive to fit in as much as possible.

We’ve just flipped this upside down. Today, the best work and the best opportunities go to those who are hard to replace. The linchpins, the ones who are likely to be missed.

All change comes from idiosyncratic voices. When you bring work from outside the status quo to people who need it, you’re doing something peculiar: specific, identifiable, and actionable.

The masses aren’t the point. They might be a welcome side effect of your work, but to please the masses, you must pander to average. Because mass means average.

On average, every population is dull. The slide toward average sands off all the interesting edges, destroying energy, interest, and possibility.

Chip has better clients. 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.

What they needed to do was stay in one town, earn fans, play again, earn fans, move to a better venue, and do it again. And again. Working their way up by claiming what they’d earned: fans.

What’s missing in this gap between good and great is the simple truth that you can’t be a great architect unless you have great clients. And at the same time, great clients rarely seek out architects who desire to be only good.

the commitment to be a great architect also requires the professionalism to do the hard work of getting better clients.

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. You earn better clients by becoming the sort of professional that better clients want. It’s lonely and difficult work.

Intentional Action Is Also Design with Empathy

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.

“who’s it for?” Once you choose which subgroup to tell your story to, which subgroup needs to change, this group becomes your focus. What do they believe? What do they want? Who do they trust? What’s their narrative? What will they tell their friends?

Precisely which people? What do they believe? Who has hurt them, double-crossed them, disappointed them? Who inspires them, makes them jealous? Who do they love, and why?

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.

When someone needs a drill bit, we can hand them a drill bit. But if someone wants to explore a new frontier, they’re going to need our help finding a creative way forward. And that’s where your point of view and your contribution live. We push on behalf of the work, and when we do, we may find that the next customer is even more eager to enroll in the journey we seek to lead.

We can build with empathy and work with their dreams, or we can choose to move on, to determine the vision is not for them, and to make something else for someone else.

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. And so the music is possible because Patricia has created the conditions where it can thrive.

entirely plausible that the “what’s-it-for” of the software design is so generous and thoughtful that users can’t help but tell their peers about the software—the design of the software is the marketing of the software. In that case, in every interaction the software has with the user, the “what’s-it-for” is to be breathtakingly smart and remarkably powerful. Not only that, but it needs to create a sharing dynamic, one that sucks other users in and makes the software work better precisely because it’s being shared. 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.

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 emotional states. We have to trust ourselves and then we have to trust the people we serve. The trust will be repaid many times over.

It’s entirely possible to believe that your ideas come from the muse and your job is simply to amplify them. And that successful people are lucky because the muse keeps giving them useful and powerful ideas. I’m not sure that’s what successful people do. All of us get an endless supply of ideas, notions, and inklings. 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. Sometimes we call this good taste.

Mindfulness demands intention. Mindfulness is the practice of simply doing the work. Without commentary, without chatter, without fear. To simply do our work. The easiest way to achieve this is to be clear about the purpose of the work. Because if the purpose is to follow a process (something that is under our control), we can focus on the process, not on the uncertainty that distracts us.

We have a new ad campaign. Fabulous, what’s it for? Well, we have great actors, and a new logo, and wait until you hear the soundtrack. Sure, that’s fun and it looks like a lot of effort went into it, but what’s it for? Our goal is to get more shoppers into stores. Got it. How does this ad do that?

this simple narrative: 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.

If we’re going to act with intention and empathy, our path is clear. The work is to make change happen. If we don’t ship the work, no change will happen. If we ship the wrong work to the wrong people, no change will happen. Your audience doesn’t want your authentic voice. They want your consistent voice.

When you trust yourself enough to turn pro, you’re entering into a covenant with those you seek to serve. You promise to design with intention, and they agree to engage with the work you promised to bring them.

We have lots of words for people who are proudly inauthentic. We call them professionals, champions, leaders, and heroes. It’s hard to authentically show up day after day, working hour after hour, when there’s probably something else you’d rather be doing. It’s difficult to encounter a dangerous situation without blinking, to patiently persist in the face of criticism, or even to merely show up on a regular basis. But that difficult work is all inauthentic. It’s work we do precisely because we don’t feel like it in the short run. It’s the choice to do something for long-term reasons, not because we’re having a tantrum. Inauthentic means effective, reasoned, intentional. It means it’s not personal, it’s generous.

But the world we seek to create doesn’t exist yet, and it has no right answers. If we knew how to do this work, we would have done it already. To be creative is to work on the frontier, to invent the next thing, the thing for which there isn’t a playbook or a manual. Certainty, then, must be elusive, because we can’t know for sure. The elusiveness isn’t a problem, it’s not a bug, it’s not something to be eliminated. The uncertainty is the point.

Getting rid of your typos, your glitches, and your obvious errors is the cost of being in the game. But the last three layers of polish might be perfectionism, not service to your audience. Failure is the foundation of our work. The process demands that we live on the frontier. That we learn new skills, explore new audiences, and find new magic for our existing audiences. As soon as we’ve mastered an approach or technique we begin again, in search of a new and more powerful one. But the only way to find something new is to be prepared (or even eager) to be wrong on our way to being right.