10 Principles For Creating Remarkable Work

10 Principles For Creating Remarkable Work

Creating Remarkable Work

 

1) You’ve got to give yourself time. For some that means working a job they don’t love because it affords them a few hours at night they can work and not worry about paying the bills. For others this may mean living in an area that is cheap, quiet, far from distractions. It may mean a hiatus from family and friends or it might just mean waking up an extra hour earlier. Without time, you won’t be able to do work that matters.

2) Get funded in odd ways. You’re fortunate enough to be creating in an age where crowdfunding is a popular method of supporting your art, your project. But don’t neglect the opportunities that don’t require a healthy network of supporters. A simple grant here, a one-day-a-week job there can do the trick. And remember, you don’t need a mass of supporters, you only need a few people who already value your work, who are your core tribe.

3) Write out your story. If you have to force it to be interesting, then change your story. Go restart your pursuit in a way that is whole-heatedly interesting. You can own a motto and a personal statement, but keep it to yourself. Let it inspire you and only you. People want to hear your interesting story, not the four word motto that only breaths life for you or the promise you made yourself at the start of the new year.

4) Declutter. Destroy. Decrease your inventory. Purge your inbox, your Evernote, your journals. When going through your collections, either find a way to use what you’ve planned, written, drawn immediately or toss it. Don’t think of incomplete projects and musings you see as failures to launch, see them as ideas that never had life in them to begin with. It’s okay. Let them go. It will be weight off your shoulders now and save you time later.

5) You don’t need regular input and feedback when you’re in the creating phase. Create in privacy. Fail in privacy. Closing your door means you shut out criticism that cripples your momentum, it means shunning the naysayers that drain your motivation, it means giving nothing for others to judge you by.

6) This tip and what prompted me to write this list comes from Teresita Fernandez’s commencement address: when someone compliments your work, don’t believe them unless they can convince you why they believe it’s good. “If they can’t convince you (and most people can’t) dismiss it as superficial and recognize that most bad consensus is made by people simply repeating that they ‘like’ something.”

7) Other than bad habits, you don’t have to give up anything you love or want to do in life in order to create remarkable work. You can travel to all the countries you want, have as many babies as you want or go to school for five more degrees. You can create remarkable work all the while. You don’t have to forfeit your dreams to do work that matters.

8) Don’t believe you need a mass following to fuel your work. A few people who support you, who care about you, who believe in you is all you need. Don’t tell yourself otherwise.

9) Be nice to everyone. Be gracious. Be thankful. Be sincere. Be personal. Be human. Be likable rather than interesting.

10) When you face fear, troubles, setbacks in life–be it with your fitness, family, finances, faith, friends–fall back on your work, your art to hold you up, not drugs, not alcohol, not other miserable people. Remember that the work you create to help others, can also help you.

 

Stay Positive & Any Other Principles You Think Are Essential? Tweet at me: @thegarthbox

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Successful Entrepreneurs

Successful Entrepreneurs

Successful Entrepreneurs

You can label a handful of people as successful entrepreneurs, but it does damage to one’s perception of what it takes to become a successful entrepreneur.

A group of businessmen and women may be labeled as successful entrepreneurs, but they are all successful in different ways. They all accomplished their goals of starting and running a remarkable business differently.

There are no manuals for becoming a successful entrepreneur because there’s no one way to do it. Everyone does it differently.

The best way to market, the best way to start a business, the best way to get on the NYT bestseller list is your own way, the way YOU invent.

Even if you mimic the work of Gladwell or Godin, there’s only one Gladwell and Godin; there’s no room for you. That’s the way it ought to be.

Decide now that you’ll be a successful entrepreneur, but don’t expect to get there solely by following a step-by-step guide (because there isn’t one).

 

Stay Positive & Go Create Your Own Guidelines To Becoming A Successful Entrepreneur

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Few Tips For Your Journey To Success

Contribute to a lot of projects

Don’t present a problem unless you’re tagging a solution with it

Everyone has different social skills and understanding of social cues, don’t take anything someone says personally

If you are finding yourself impatient, use that time to reflect

People will tell your story whether you guide them with what to say or not

 

Stay Positive & Everything We Do And How We Do It Matters

Take The Stage: 15 Pieces Of Advice For 2015 Success

Take The Stage: 15 Pieces Of Advice For 2015 Success

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These are all tried and true practices, insights and advice of the most successful entrepreneurs, designers, brewers, writers, and artists that I’ve spoken to, listened to or seen in 2014.

Absolutely invaluable wisdom.

1) Show the world you’re not afraid.

2) Follow your gut. If it speaks to you, you don’t need confirmation from anyone else.

3) If you can’t find a job, create one. If you can’t find a way, make one.

4) Not everything you do will be a success, there will be things you do that are a flop. That’s okay as long as you push through.

5) Be completely indifferent to what people say about you.

6) Connect things that haven’t been connected; it’s how you make breakthroughs.

7) Wake up early and on your own time.

8) Mornings are the only time that a routine should take place.

9) An overwhelming number of entrepreneurs go through divorces because of their focus on business instead of relationships. Just be aware.

10) Connect with two people a day. Lunch date. Twitter chat. FB message. Good morning email.

11) Go where you’re treated best.

12) Find patterns. It’s the best way to guarantee an idea will work. (You may not understand the benefit of this advice until you start noticing patterns and asking why they are there.)

13) Keep going after something and you’ll get it. Stop and you’ll never.

14) If you make one decision over another because “it doesn’t really matter,” then you’re making the wrong decision because everything matters.

15) Hustle has to be in your legs, not your hands. Don’t get stuck in busy work, do work that matters, that moves you forward.

 

I don’t take these numbered posts lightly. I put a lot of thought and heart into what advice matters and can best serve you. I can chat for 10 minutes on any one of these, so feel free to reach out and make a friend this new year.

 

Stay Positive & Take The Stage This 2015

Protip: you can start right now.

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How To Make Hard Work Smoother And Success Easier

How To Make Hard Work Smoother And Success Easier

Putting Yourself Out There In Something Bigger Than Yourself

I’ve tackled some large projects, some valuable pitches, and some heavy team building strategies over the last few years. What has made my practice flow and get me to quickly reach various successes (milestones I defined for myself)  has been to have a single target I want to reach. Let me explain,

  • If you want to work at a PR agency, choose one and make that your primary focus.
  • If you want to be a blogger, choose your corner of the internet and put all your worry, anxiousness, concern, and attention into it, and not any other corner.
  • If you want to travel to Nepal, put all you’ve got into making that happen.

BUT, be casually (not actively) open to new, different opportunities.

The benefit of working like this is that because you’re so focused on one thing, it makes anything and everything else seem nearly effortless.

  • It’s painless to go into and interview at an agency you’re not 100 percent sold on and rock the heck out of the interview because you don’t see it as a defining moment in your life.
  • When you’re focused on your corner of the internet, you’re more likely to get published on other outlets because you didn’t over think the writing you’ve submitted to them. You save the over thinking for what you publish on your blog.
  • It’s easy to “apply and see what happens” for a trip to Cambodia, even though your primary target is Nepal.

When you’re so focused on achieving one goal, you’re more carefree, open, vulnerable, true, and authentic when it comes to other related options. When you have your one target, it makes hitting any other targets much easier.

The best projects I’ve landed were ones I never truly aimed for, thus never stressed about.

Bonus tip: If you’ve got a big pitch or event you’re hosting or project you’re selling at a certain time of day. Plan something larger to do after, something that scares you more. It’s the same concept as described above. When you set a lofty target or goal for yourself, it makes everything else much easier.

 

Stay Positive & How Will You Use This Life Hack To Your Advantage?

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The Most Important Mindset For Building Your Skill Set

The Most Important Mindset For Building Your Skill Set

Mindset, Skill set, Success

There’s a particular mindset that makes you indispensable, a true linchpin.

It is a commitment to see a project through.

I’ve had (emphasis on past tense) team members who started a project with me, but then ran away when real work was in order.

We’ve all had people tell us they will do something, then fail to do it.

I’ve made my own mistakes of sitting back, too. A perfect example is Curb Magazine.

As managing editor, I’m involved in the entire process of making a magazine from scratch. From philosophy ideation, all the way through the launch and distribution of the final product. I work with four different teams (editorial, online, creative, and business) to reach distribution.

After we submit our design to the press house, and before distribution, the press house gives our publisher a proof copy of what they will print. Instead of getting involved in the last proofing process (the last chance to make any corrections to the magazine), I let my other team leaders handle it.

I didn’t see the process through, and, as a result of leaving the rest of the project to them (and no insult to their talent), two words are missing at the bottom of the first page of my story in the printed version of the magazine… all 10,000 of our one-time printed version. #lessonlearned

All of the skills businesses, companies, agencies, and leaders look for… they all make up the mindset of one’s commitment to a project, to their work, to passion.

When you get in the habit of seeing things all the way through, there’s no doubt you learn and strengthen all the skills employers and team members look for.

When you don’t follow through, you bring everyone down and hold yourself back.

 

Stay Positive & They’re Not Kidding When They Say Success Is A Mindset, Not A Skill List

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Where To Find Your Muse

Where To Find Your Muse

Find Your Muse, Stay In Your Flow

The feeling of boredom comes to every linchpin, artist, and entrepreneur from time to time. The reason is quite clear: actions have become easy, challenges are few and far between, and there is less need of a growing skill.

As a result, the impresario seeks out larger challenges that require focus, additional connections, and an incessant need to learn new skills to accomplish the goal.

But once the artist sets down that path, she realizes she has set too lofty of a goal, too large of an expectation of herself, too tough of a challenge, so she returns to the start of this post, desiring a calmer path, a quieter challenge, an easier goal.

As Peter Turchi writes, it’s a cycle of satisfaction and frustration. To find our muse we must find the flow between the anxiety of a difficult practice and the boredom of an easy task.

The real problem isn’t doing what it takes to stay within your flow, your muse; it’s noticing when you’re outside of it, when a task is too easy or a challenge too large. Both of which are slippery slopes that lead to failure and resentment.

 

Stay Positive & Be Aware Of Your Flow

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