The Practice

if you and I are exchanging our best work, our best work gets better. Abundance multiplies. Scarcity subtracts. A vibrant culture creates more than it takes.

We don’t write because we feel like it. We feel like it because we write.

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.

Isaac Asimov published more than four hundred books. How did he possibly pull that off? Asimov woke up every morning, sat in front of his manual typewriter, and he typed. That was his job, to type. The stories he created, the robots and the rest, were the bonus that came along for the ride. He typed when he wasn’t inspired. The typing turned into w

Artists make change happen. Artists are humans who do generous work that might not work. Artists aren’t limited to paint or museums. You’re an artist as soon as you announce you are. As a leader, a coach, a contributor, a designer, a musician, an impresario … it’s art if you let it be. If you care enough.

Anchors can drag us down. That’s their job on a boat. But for a creative person, an anchor can also be a beacon, the thing we work toward, relentlessly. Not because it’s perfect. But because it’s 11:30. We promised. The process, not the outcome. That’s the heart of our practice. Good process leads to good outcomes.

There’s a practice available to each of us—the practice of embracing the process of creation in service of better. The practice is not the means to the output, the practice is the output, because the practice is all we can control.

Let’s call it art. The human act of doing something that might not work, something generous, something that will make a difference. The emotional act of doing personal, self-directed work to make a change that we can be proud of.

The word “peculiar” comes from the idea of private property. Your cattle, to be specific. No one gets to control your livestock other than you. It’s private property. No property is more private than your voice. Your dreams and fears and contributions are yours—peculiar to you, idiosyncratic.