- The more original your idea is, the less good advice other people will be able to give you. When I first started with the cartoon-on-back-of-bizcard format, people thought I was nuts. - GOOD IDEAS ALTER THE POWER BALANCE IN RELATIONSHIPS. THAT IS WHY GOOD IDEAS ARE ALWAYS INITIALLY RESISTED. - The idea doesn’t have to be big. It just has to be yours. The sovereignty you have over your work will inspire far more people than the actual content ever will. - It was so liberating to be doing something that didn’t have to have some sort of commercial angle, for a change. It was so liberating to be doing something that didn’t have to impress anybody, for a change. It was so liberating to be free of ambition, for a change. It was so liberating to be doing something that wasn’t a career move, for a change. It was so liberating to have something that belonged just to me and no one else, for a change. It was so liberating to feel complete sovereignty, for a change. To feel complete freedom, for a change. To have something that didn’t require somebody else’s money, or somebody else’s approval, for a change. And of course, it was then, and only then, that the outside world started paying attention. - Put the hours in. Doing anything worthwhile takes forever. Ninety percent of what separates successful people and failed people is time, effort, and stamina. - Good ideas have lonely childhoods. This is the price you pay, every time. There is no way of avoiding it. - If your business plan depends on suddenly being “discovered” by some big shot, your plan will probably fail. Nobody suddenly discovers anything. Things are made slowly and in pain. - You are responsible for your own experience. Nobody can tell you if what you’re doing is good, meaningful, or worthwhile. The more compelling the path, the more lonely it is. - Everyone is born creative; everyone is given a box of crayons in kindergarten. Then when you hit puberty they take the crayons away and replace them with dry, uninspiring books on algebra, history, etc. Being suddenly hit years later with the “creative bug” is just a wee voice telling you, “I’d like my crayons back, please.” - Well, over time the “harshly” bit might go away, but not the “divided.” This tense duality will always play center stage. It will never be transcended. And nobody is immune. Not the struggling waiter, nor the movie star. As soon as you accept this, I mean really accept this, for some reason your career starts moving ahead faster. I don’t know why this happens. It’s the people who refuse to cleave their lives this way—who just want to start Day One by quitting their current crappy day job and moving straight on over to bestselling author—well, they never make it. - Companies that squelch creativity can no longer compete with companies that champion creativity. Nor can you bully a subordinate into becoming a genius. - Everybody has their own private Mount Everest they were put on this earth to climb. You may never reach the summit; for that you will be forgiven. But if you don’t make at least one serious attempt to get above the snow line, years later you will find yourself lying on your deathbed, and all you will feel is emptiness. - The more talented somebody is, the less they need the props. - Don’t try to stand out from the crowd; avoid crowds altogether. Your plan for getting your work out there has to be as original as the actual work, perhaps even more so. The work has to create a totally new market. There’s no point trying to do the same thing as 250,000 other young hopefuls, waiting for a miracle. All existing business models are wrong. Find a new one. - Question how much freedom your path affords you. Be utterly ruthless about it. It’s your freedom that will get you to where you want to go. Blind faith in an oversubscribed, vainglorious myth will only hinder you. - If you accept the pain, it cannot hurt you. The pain of making the necessary sacrifices always hurts more than you think it’s going to. - FRANKLY, I THINK YOU’RE BETTER OFF DOING something on the assumption that you will not be rewarded for it, that it will not receive the recognition it deserves, that it will not be worth the time and effort invested in it. The obvious advantage to this angle is, of course, if anything good comes of it, then it’s an added bonus. The second, more subtle and profound advantage is that by scuppering all hope of worldly and social betterment from the creative act, you are finally left with only one question to answer: Do you make this damn thing exist or not? - Never compare your inside with somebody else’s outside. - Dying young is overrated. - The most important thing a creative person can learn professionally is where to draw the red line that separates what you are willing to do from what you are not. Art suffers the moment other people start paying for it. The more you need the money, the more people will tell you what to do. The less control you will have. The more bullshit you will have to swallow. The less joy it will bring. Know this and plan accordingly. - The world is changing. Some people are hip to it, others are not. If you want to be able to afford groceries in five years, I’d recommend listening closely to the former and avoiding the latter. Just my two cents. - Merit can be bought. Passion can’t. The only people who can change the world are people who want to. And not everybody does. - Part of understanding the creative urge is understanding that it’s primal. Wanting to change the world is not a noble calling, it’s a primal calling. - Avoid the Watercooler Gang. They’re a well-meaning bunch, but they get in the way eventually. - Sing in your own voice. - The choice of media is irrelevant. Every medium’s greatest strength is also its greatest weakness. Every form of media is a set of fundamental compromises; one is not “higher” than the others. - Selling out is harder than it looks. - Nobody cares. Do it for yourself. Everybody is too busy with their own lives to give a damn about your book, painting, screenplay, etc., especially if you haven’t finished it yet. And the ones who aren’t too busy you don’t want in your life anyway. - Worrying about “Commercial vs. Artistic” is a complete waste of time. - Don’t worry about finding inspiration. It comes eventually. Inspiration precedes the desire to create, not the other way around. - You have to find a way of working that makes it dead easy to take full advantage of your inspired moments. They never hit at a convenient time, nor do they last long. - You have to find your own shtick. A Picasso always looks like Picasso painted it. Hemingway always sounds like Hemingway. A Beethoven symphony always sounds like a Beethoven symphony. Part of being a master is learning how to sing in nobody else’s voice but your own. - Write from the heart. There is no silver bullet. - Intimacy doesn’t scale. Not really. Intimacy is a one-on-one phenomenon. It’s not a big deal. Whether you’re writing to an audience of one, five, a thousand, a million, ten million, there’s really only one way to truly connect. One way that actually works: Write from the heart. - The best way to get approval is not to need it. This is equally true in art and business. - Power is never given. Power is taken. People who are “ready” give off a different vibe from people who aren’t. Animals can smell fear. And the lack thereof. - Whatever choice you make, the Devil gets his due eventually. - The hardest part of being creative is getting used to it. If you have the creative urge, it isn’t going to go away. But sometimes it takes a while before you accept the fact. - Remain frugal. The less you can live on, the more chance your idea will succeed - Allow your work to age with you. You become older faster than you think. Be ready for it when it happens. - There’s a famous old quip: “A lot of people in business say they have twenty years’ experience, when in fact all they really have is one year’s experience, repeated twenty times.” - Being Poor Sucks. The biggest mistake young people make is underestimating how competitive the world is out there. - Beware of turning hobbies into jobs. It sounds great, but there is a downside. - “That’s why you should never turn your hobby into your job,” said one of my friends, someone far older and wiser than I. “Before, this man had a job and a hobby. Now suddenly, he’s just got the job, but no hobby anymore. But a man needs both, you see. And now what does this man, who’s always had a hobby, do with his time?” - Savor obscurity while it lasts. Once you “make it,” your work is never the same. - Start blogging. The ease with which a blog (or whatever social medium you prefer) can circumvent the gatekeepers is staggering. - Meaning scales, people don’t. - When your dreams become reality, they are no longer your dreams. If you are successful, it’ll never come from the direction you predicted. Same is true if you fail. - It’s good to be young and full of dreams. Dreams of one day doing something “insanely great.” Dreams of love, beauty, achievement, and contribution. But understand they have a life of their own, and they’re not very good at following instructions. Love them, revere them, nurture them, respect them, but don’t ever become a slave to them. Otherwise you’ll kill them off prematurely, before they get the chance to come true.