Author of seven books, including The Accidental Creative, Herding Tigers, Die Empty, Daily Creative, The Brave Habit. I help creative pros and leaders to be brave, focused, and brilliant every day.
BFB: Are you ever finished?
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Creative work is never finished. It can weigh on you even when you're at home, with friends, or... in the middle of the night. This week, three ideas about making creative work more manageable. One to help you be brave. One to help you focus. One to help you be brilliant. Brave: Reversible and Irreversible DecisionsWith the uncertainty that leaders face, it's easy to slip into a kind of analysis paralysis. We defer decisions because we need "more information", and "more input from leadership", or some other reason. However, it's important to recognize that not all decisions should be given the same weight. Jeff Bezos considers decisions like doors. Some are one-way, and some are two-way. As Shane Parrish described on Farnam Street: Once you walk through a one-way door, you can’t come back. It’s irreversible. With a two-way door, on the other hand, you can walk through, look around, and easily come back to where you started. So, as you consider the important decisions in front of you, which are reversible and which are irreversible? To be brave, don't take too much time fretting over a decision that can be undone. Where might you be paralyzed on a decision right now? Is it reversible or irreversible? Focused: Are You Ever... Finished?How often do you reach a point at the end of your day where you feel finished? The sense that you're never really finished is one that plagues many creative pros and leaders. There's always something more to do. Something more to tweak. Another email to send. Another conversation to have. Dr David Maloney addresses this in a recent video. What you do is you start to negotiate... your minimum standards for Action. And that's different for everybody but... instead of asking what's the most I can do we we sit with what's the least I can do today in any given area and feel like I've made some progress that I can feel that's solid The reason we never feel finished is because we set big, ambitious goals for the mid-term rather than reasonable, achievable goals in the short-term. Do you struggle with a sense that you're never finished with your work?? Brilliant: Make Education LifelongIn my book The Accidental Creative I wrote about a practice called Unnecessary Creating. This involve making things, being creative, or exercising innovative thought in ways that aren't being judged, that you aren't being paid for, and that - perhaps - no one is even watching. This allows you to develop new skills in a relatively low-risk environment. In an article in the Wall Street Journal, Veronica Dagher tags this "lifelong learning": Another benefit of learning new ideas and skills is that it may better position you to switch jobs by making you more marketable, career coaches said. Using your brain is like using muscles, the stronger it gets with appropriate use. Engaging in unnecessary creating allows you to develop skills in a low-risk way that you can later apply to your on-demand work. What unnecessary creating could you do this week? This Week:
And, finally:If you enjoyed this newsletter, my new book The Brave Habit is a practical guide to making brave decisions every day in your work. I hope you’ll read it. (You can download a few sample chapters here.) Your turn to lead:Do you know someone who might find this email helpful? Please forward it to them. |
Todd Henry
Author of seven books, including The Accidental Creative, Herding Tigers, Die Empty, Daily Creative, The Brave Habit. I help creative pros and leaders to be brave, focused, and brilliant every day.
Talent gets you in the game, but your practices keep you at the table. Last week our Creative Leader Roundtable group discussed the practices that sustain us as creative pros. With so much uncertainty swirling and the pressure to make decisions faster than ever, it's important to know how to set your own pace rather than simply being carried along by the accelerating expectations of the world around you. Over 20+ years of working closely with talented creative pros, here's a truth that's...
What Nobody's Saying Speaks Louder Than Words Silence in a team isn't neutral. It's easy to treat it that way. When nobody pushes back in the meeting, when the group moves forward without objection, when everything seems fine on the surface, it's tempting to read that as alignment. As trust. As things working. But... often it isn't. Sometimes silence is disagreement that doesn't believe it has a home. Culture researcher Gustavo Razzetti has a useful term for what accumulates when teams go...
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