Learnings from Seth Godin's The Practice: Shipping Creative Work
'The practice is a journey without an external boss. Because there is no one in charge, this path requires us to trust ourselves."
Letter 26
Seth Godin is a genuine marketing guy and an inspiration to every aspiring creative worker. He writes and blogs daily on his website.
The author talks about the practice being the only attribute that is controlled to get any creative work done by the creative individual. Everything else is contradictory, seems like all other things can be gained control over, but it’s a futile exercise.
results are the end result of a process that comes from determined practice.
Fear is real, but is of no use. To do your work is to share with the world.
Shipping because it doesn’t count if you don’t share it.Creative because you are not a cog in the system. You are a creator, a problem solver, a generous leader who is making things better by producing a new way forward.Work because it's not a hobby. You might not get paid for it, not today, but you approach it as a professional. The muse (flow) is not the point, excuses are avoided, and the work is why you are here.
Learnings from the book.
1. Trust yourself. At the heart of the creative’s practice is trust, the difficult journey to trust in yourself.
2. Creativity is an action, not a feeling. We can always control our actions no matter how we feel at the time of action, and feeling is something that cannot be controlled.
3. ‘If you want to change your story, change your actions first.’ We become what we do,
4. ‘Do what you love’ is for amateurs.
‘Love what you do’ is the mantra for professionals.
5. Outcomes are the result of processes. Good processes repeated over time, leads to good outcome more often than lazy processes do. But focusing solely on the outcomes forces us to make choices that are short-term or selfish. It takes our focus away from the journey and encourages us to give up too early.
6. Identity fuels action, and action creates habit, and habits are part of a practice and practice is the single best way to get to where you seek to go.
7. There is a gap between confidence and trust.
- Confidence is a feeling we get when we imagine that we have control over the outcome.
“…Requiring control over external events is a recipe for heartache and frustation.”
- Trust is to do the work, with generosity and intent, and to accept every outcome, the good ones as well as the bad ones.
8. You are not the boss, but you are in charge. You are in charge of how you spend your time. In charge of the questions you ask. In charge of the insight you produce.
9. Anger gets you so far, then it destroys you.
Jeaslousy might get you started, but it will fade.
Greed seems like a good idea until you discover that it eliminates all of your joy.
‘The path forward is about three foundations of art : curiosity, generosity and connection.
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.
10. Trust the process. Trusting yourself comes from a desire to make a difference, to do something that matters.
Those were the learnings from Seth Godin’s book. There are many more but I mentioned a few important ones.
Thanks for reading this letter.