creative

The way to have good ideas is to get close to killing yourself. It’s like weightlifting. When you lift slightly more than you can handle, you get stronger. In life, when the gun is to your head, you either figure it out, or you die. When you cut yourself open, you bleed ideas. If you’re …

A year into starting Yes Theory, we launched a production company called 506 Productions. The guys and I partnered with a few friends with the goal of making films and shows outside of Yes Theory. We slapped together a logo, signed the operating agreement, reached out to potential clients and bought some business cards.

I love having my own store so I can make things the way I think they should be.

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We’re afraid. We know what we want to do, what we could do, what we should do.  It’s an idea for a new business. It’s dropping out of college. It’s telling someone how we feel. It’s trying something radically different.  But something gets in the way. The voice in our head. The voice of others inside our head. People tell us that our idea is crazy, that the odds are slim, that people like us do things like this, not like that.  Oh, what this costs us. “Apprehension, uncertainty, waiting, expectation, fear of surprise, do a patient more harm than any exertion,” Florence Nightingale, a woman who resisted her calling for a good chunk of the first thirty years of her life, once wrote. Yet these pedestrian but powerful fears—they keep so many of us from our destiny. They give us a million reasons why. Or why not.  But it must be said that greatness is impossible without taking the risk, without leaping into uncertainty, without overcoming fear. Name one good thing that did not require at least a few hard seconds of bravery. If we wish to be great, if we wish to realize our potential, we must learn how to conquer fear, or at least rise above it in the moments that matter. So here, adapted from my just-released book Courage is Calling: Fortune Favors The Brave, are 15 ways to do just that…and to hopefully get a little closer to reaching your potential.  Defeat Fear With Logic In sobriety circles they use the acronym F.E.A.R. “False Evidence Appearing Real.” That’s what fear is. False impressions that feel real. We must break fear down logically. Go to the root of it. Explain it. Tell yourself: It’s just money. It’s just a bad article. It’s just a meeting with people yelling at one another. Is that something you need to be afraid of? “There are more things,” Seneca wrote, “likely to frighten us than there are to crush us; we suffer more often in imagination than in reality.” Break it down. Really look at the facts. Investigate. Only then can we really see. Block Out Other People’s Opinions  Almost everything new, everything impressive, everything right, was done over the loud objections of the status quo. Most of what is beloved now was looked down on at the time of its creation or adoption by people who now pretend that never happened. When I talked to the rapper Logic on the Daily Stoic podcast, he talked about how every time he puts out a new album, the haters come out in droves. When he put out his first album, they wanted the sound and style of his mixtapes. When he put out his second album, they wanted the sound and style of his first album. When he put out his third album, they wanted the sound and style of his second album. And on and on. This is how it goes. This is how it has always gone. Some two thousand years, Cicero wrote about the haters, the gossipers, the side-line commentators. “Let other people worry over what they will say about you,” he said. “They will say it in any case.” Don’t value the opinion of faceless, unaccountable strangers above your own considered judgment. Question Your Extrapolations In Courage is Calling, I tell the story of Ulysses S. Grant early in his military career on a long journey across East Texas. It was just him and one other man crossing creeks and rivers in hostile territory filled with thick scrub bush and rattlesnakes and “the most unearthly howling of wolves.” Grant wanted to turn back and prayed that his companion would suggest it. The other officer, a little more weathered and experienced than Grant, smiled and pushed on. “Grant, how many wolves do you think are in that pack?” he asked. Not wanting to seem stupid or a coward, Grant tried to casually underestimate the threat that terrified him. “Oh, about twenty,” he said with nonchalance that betrayed his racing heart. Suddenly, Grant and the officer came upon the source of the sound. There, resting comfortably, with mischievous confidence, were just two wolves. So unnerved by a danger with which he was unfamiliar, it had never occurred to him to question the racing of his heart or the extrapolations of his mind. The night is dark and full of terrors. We face many enemies in life. But you have to understand: They are not nearly as formi- dable as your mind makes you think. Define Your Fears What we fear, we do not exactly know. We never actually define what so worries us. Our fears are not concrete, they are shadows, illusions, refractions. The entrepreneur and writer Tim Ferriss has spoken of the exercise of “fear setting”—of defining and articulating the nightmares, anxieties, and doubts that hold us back. Indeed, the ancient roots of this practice go back at least to the Stoics. Seneca wrote about premeditatio malorum, the deliberate meditation on the evils that we might encounter. Vague fear is sufficient to deter us; the more it is explored, the less power it has over us. Focus On The Other Side Of Fear Don’t worry about whether things will be hard. Because they will be. Instead, focus on the fact that these things will help you. This is why you needn’t fear them. Our bruises and scars become armor. Our struggles become experience. They make us better. They prepared us for this moment, just as this moment will prepare us for one that lies ahead. They are the flavoring that makes victory taste so sweet. If it were easy, everyone would do it. If everyone did it, how valuable would it be? The whole point is that it’s hard. The risk is a feature, not a bug. Nec aspera terrent. Don’t be frightened by difficulties. Be like the athlete, knowing what a hard workout gives you: stronger muscles. Find Your Agency Fear determines what is or isn’t [...]

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Yesterday, I announced on Instagram that my newest book, Courage is Calling: Fortune Favors The Brave, is available for preorder. It will be my 12th book in 10 years, and so there were a bunch of comments from people who wondered how I was able to get another one done so quickly.  How do you write books faster than I read them?  What’s your secret to writing so many books?  The answer is that I have a system, a process that helps me be productive. It’s not my system exactly, as I’ve taken many strategies from the greatest writers to ever do it. Although I talk about the creative process at length in my book Perennial Seller (which for some reason is currently $1.99 everywhere you get your ebooks), I thought I would detail some of my rules that I follow as a writer. I think they can help anyone be more productive.  [1] Read. Read. Read.  A book is made of books. “The greatest part of a writer’s time is spent in reading; a man will turn over half a library to make one book,” Samuel Johnson said. As I was putting together the bibliography for Courage, I counted something like 300 books I was directly sourcing from.  [2] Always be researching The bulk of the work is researching—collecting stories, anecdotes, and data to marshal your argument. The writing is stringing those pieces together. I’ve found stuff I’ve used in in-flight magazines, discovered snippets on social media, even heard things mentioned on TV. As Shelby Foote put it in an interview with The Paris Review: “I can’t begin to tell you the things I discovered while I was looking for something else.” [3] Put good advice where you work Print and put a couple of important quotes up on the wall to help guide you (either generally, or for a specific project). When I was working on Ego is the Enemy, I had this quote from Machiavelli on the wall to inspire its style and ethos: “I have not adorned this work with fine phrases, with swelling, pompous words, or with any of those blandishments or external ornaments with which many set forth and decorate their matter. For I have chosen either that nothing at all should bring it honor or that the variety of its material and the gravity of its subject matter alone should make it welcome.” I have another quote that I put up for this book from Martha Graham: “Never be afraid of the material. The material knows when you’re frightened and will not help.” [4] Make commitments I turn in a book proposal for my next book before my latest one comes out. When I have a commitment that I know I have to meet, Resistance doesn’t have the time or space to creep in. Right now I am on a book year path for the next four years. It keeps me honest and keeps me working. Meet deadline, or death.  [5] Work with great people Success requires greater investment in the creative process. Pay for professional help. There’s that saying: if you think pros are expensive, try hiring an amateur.  [6] Have something to say “To have something to say,” Schopenhauer said, “by itself is virtually a sufficient condition for good style.” [7] Have a model in mind Thucydides had Herodotus. Gibbon had Thucydides. Shelby Foote had Gibbon. Every playwright since Shakespeare has had Shakespeare. Everyone has a master to learn from. For me, it’s been Robert Greene [8] Know where you’re going You don’t “find the book as you write.” You have to do the hard work of solving the problem first. You have to figure out the best route, too. One of the best pieces of writing advice I ever got was to–before I started the process–articulate the idea in one sentence, one paragraph and one page. This crystallizes the idea for you and guides you—Nassim Taleb wrote in Antifragile that every sentence in the book was a “derivation, an application or an interpretation of the short maxim” he opened with.  [9] Focus on What You Control As Epictetus says, there’s some stuff that’s up to us, some stuff that’s not. The work is up to you. Everything else is not. If you’re in this for external rewards, god help you. A Confederacy of Dunces was rejected by publishers. After the author’s suicide, it won the Pulitzer. People don’t know shit. YOU know. So love it while you’re doing it. Success can only be extra. [10] Embrace draw-down periods You need what the strategist and theorist John Boyd called the “draw-down period.” Take a break right before you start. To think, to reflect, to let things settle. I started Courage is Calling on my birthday, but not before I took an extended period of just thinking.  [11] Listen to the same song on repeat I’ve found that picking one song—usually something I am not proud to say I am listening to—and listening to it on repeat, over and over and over again is the best way to get into a rhythm and flow. It not only shuts out outside noise but also parts of my conscious mind I don’t need to hear from while I’m writing.  [12] Make little progress each day One of the best rules I’ve heard as a writer is that the way to write a book is by producing “two crappy pages a day.” It’s by carving out a small win each and every day—getting words on the page—that a book is created. Hemingway once said that “the first draft of anything is shit,” and he’s right (I actually have that on my wall as a reminder).  [13] Don’t let the tools distract you  Great artists work. Mediocre artists talk a lot about tools. Software does not make you a better writer. If classics were created with quill and ink, you’ll probably be fine with a Word Document. Or a blank piece of paper. Don’t let [...]

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Putting the Pieces Together

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