The things to say no to
View this email in your browser (|ARCHIVE|)
I’m often asked to share what I know about starting and running a successful business. Typically I respond by saying “well that’s kind of a trick question.”
I’ve been in business for close to 14 years now and over 20 as a writer by trade. The longer I do this, the less certain I am about there being some magical to-do list that even remotely guarantees success.
I’m not saying it’s all just a matter of luck (although there is plenty of that). Nor am I saying you should ignore advice that’s earned the title of “time honoured.”
But what I am saying is there are limits to what you can learn from what others have said “yes” to in life.
We are all prone to narrative fallacies, constructing stories to validate our selective use of facts. Let me put that another way: we shoot an arrow at something, then paint a target around it…and then explain how we were successful at hitting it.
See the jump in logic, |NAME|?
I’ve shared with you previously why it’s important to study failure (http://us4.campaign-archive2.com/?u=89226eb68936fc712577977b8&id=65625e5569) as part of the business of being creative.
Today, I’d like to build on that point and talk about why it’s important to say “no” to things. And I don’t mind telling you that most of these took me a long time to figure out. Maybe I’m a slow learner.
I share these with you so you don’t have to spend over a decade making my mistakes.
No to unlocking the busy badge. No one cares how hard you worked on something: but they do care deeply about how good the work is. Having too much to do in too few hours does not lead to better work. In the last year and a half, since I radically changed the way I live and how I work, I put in far fewer desk hours than I used to.
Instead, I am doing the best work I have ever done, for the best clients I have ever had, and feel infinitely better about the meaning behind my efforts.
No longer trying to unlock the busy badge, I focus on how I can better serve my clients and my community of creatives. I do far more research now than ever before. And engage in daily exercise. Those inputs replaced the mishmash of busy tasks that used to litter my day. The output: better work in less time.
No to being a walk-on. I had to make this costly mistake repeatedly until I figured out what was going on. It’s tempting—especially when you are first starting out—to let others decide what your role is going to be or to have them define the value that you can deliver.
That applies as much to being an employee in a workplace as it does to being a business owner. You and I are professionals: we’re paid to provide a service. What’s in your control is how you deliver that service.
The shorthand version of this point is David Leddick’s concise advice in I’m Not For Everyone and Neither Are You: “Never do walk-ons in someone else’s movie.”
Make your own movie (http://us4.campaign-archive2.com/?u=89226eb68936fc712577977b8&id=9272c7afce) . And make it good one.
No to seeing your weaknesses as flaws. I have a short attention span. I get impatient when presented with needlessly complicated tasks. I’m prone to question assumptions and maybe even defy authority from time to time.
These qualities make me the kind of person who might charitably be labeled as “does not play well in groups.”
I used to see these as things I needed to fix. I don’t do that anymore.
As professionals, you and I are paid to solve problems for businesses and organizations. Whether you’re a systems analyst or a plumber, doing your best work means exercising the unique skills you have to look at things from a different angle. Your personal strengths become your tactical advantage only when you understand both their capacity to hinder you if left unchecked and their ability to make you stand out from the crowd.
No to complicating things. I used to be extremely detail oriented in my writing—partly to try and compensate for that short attention span of mine.
Don’t do that. Wordy ideas suck.
Take a lesson from Silicon Valley author and investor Tim Ferriss: “Pitches fail from too much information, not from too little information.”
As creatives, it’s our job to think through the details and understand them: not to report them the way we find them. This is harder to do than it sounds. But the outcome is worth the extra work.
“If you aim for simplicity, master complexity.” That’s Wang Anjie’s 300 year-old sage advice about Chinese brush painting techniques, compiled in Mustard Seed Garden Manual.
It applies today just as much to managing a team of staff as it does to designing software. Start by understanding how complicated something can be. Drill down deep into how it works and why.
But don’t use what you’ve learned to turn around and make equally complicated products. Pretty much anybody can do that. Don’t be like anybody. Only you can take what you know and share it with others in a way that sticks.
That’s it for this week. Thank you, as always, for reading. Remember to share what you love on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
Patrick
P.S. Nearly 90% of CreativeBoost readers read this newsletter on a mobile device. That’s why this text is optimized for that experience. Prefer smaller text? You can opt for a text-only version of the newsletter. Change your preference simply by clicking the green button below. Update your settings (|UPDATE_PROFILE|) http://twitter.com/intent/tweet?text=|URL:MC_SUBJECT|: |URL:ARCHIVE_LINK_SHORT| Tweet (http://twitter.com/intent/tweet?text=|URL:MC_SUBJECT|: |URL:ARCHIVE_LINK_SHORT|) http://www.linkedin.com/shareArticle?url=|URL:ARCHIVE_LINK_SHORT|&mini=true&title=|URL:MC_SUBJECT| Share (http://www.linkedin.com/shareArticle?url=|URL:ARCHIVE_LINK_SHORT|&mini=true&title=|URL:MC_SUBJECT|) http://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=|URL:ARCHIVE_LINK_SHORT| Share (http://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=|URL:ARCHIVE_LINK_SHORT|)
============================================================ |IFNOT:ARCHIVE_PAGE| |LIST:DESCRIPTION|
unsubscribe from this list (|UNSUB|) update subscription preferences (|UPDATE_PROFILE|)
|IF:REWARDS| |REWARDS_TEXT| |END:IF|