Archive (Page 2) • CreativeBoost • Buttondown

Like a leaf, like a tree

View this email in your browser (|ARCHIVE|) Previously in CreativeBoost, I shared some thoughts with you about the importance of growing small...

View this email in your browser (|ARCHIVE|) “What’s true and what’s real are not necessarily the same.” —Elliott Gould It is a mistake to believe that...

February 19, 2017

View this email in your browser (|ARCHIVE|) “Despite everything, no one can dictate who you are to other people.” —Prince It was 1987, and Prince had very...

February 5, 2017

View this email in your browser (|ARCHIVE|) Most of us are susceptible to distorted thinking in the way we make choices. We’re conditioned to believe our...

Bringing sense to ideas

January 22, 2017

View this email in your browser (|ARCHIVE|) Our best work seldom just comes to us. It’s a byproduct of a process. Think of how top performers get things...

January 8, 2017

View this email in your browser (|ARCHIVE|) As with the start of previous (http://us4.campaign-archive2.com/?u=89226eb68936fc712577977b8&id=e4913e43d9) years...

November 28, 2016

View this email in your browser (|ARCHIVE|) There is an old Zen koan—a kind of puzzle—that asks us: “How do you go straight ahead on a narrow mountain path...

November 13, 2016

View this email in your browser (|ARCHIVE|) “What you’re thinking is what you’re becoming.” —Muhammad Ali My friend, it has become popular to say we live in...

Turn fire to water

October 30, 2016

View this email in your browser (|ARCHIVE|) We are better at doing things than we are at thinking about them. And yet too often we get this backwards. We...

October 16, 2016

View this email in your browser (|ARCHIVE|) Today, I can’t think of a more misused word than passion. It’s used as generously as gravy on mashed potatoes by...

You are your process

October 2, 2016

View this email in your browser (|ARCHIVE|) “Oh, my work speaks for itself.” No, it doesn’t. The work you do is an outcome: a writer creates a manuscript for...

September 18, 2016

View this email in your browser (|ARCHIVE|) "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye." —Antoine de...

Hacking your beliefs

September 4, 2016

View this email in your browser (|ARCHIVE|) "Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth." —Marcus...

Commanding the best

View this email in your browser (|ARCHIVE|) Your best work does not come from your ego: it survives in spite of it. To be serious about your craft and the...

Talk minus action

View this email in your browser (|ARCHIVE|) I regularly get asked two questions about CreativeBoost. This first one is this: “Why in the world do you...

View this email in your browser (|ARCHIVE|) I’ve never bought into the argument that negative thinking is inherently bad and that the solution is to smother...

Don't call me a freelancer

View this email in your browser (|ARCHIVE|) It’s become popular to describe creative minded, self-employed people as freelancers. For some, it’s shorthand...

Small, simple steps

View this email in your browser (|ARCHIVE|) I’m fascinated by the the Japanese concept of kaizen. It’s commonplace to apply this word to business and...

View this email in your browser (|ARCHIVE|) Five things for your consideration today: (1) Nothing we create comes from nothing. Each thing we do or make in...

Recoding for independence

View this email in your browser (|ARCHIVE|) “We don’t hear much about how painful it is to go from being completely stuck to becoming unstuck. The process of...

Your sense of presence

View this email in your browser (|ARCHIVE|) “There is no good singing, there is only present and absent.” ― Jeff Buckley For a couple of hours once a week,...

Creative you is a choice

View this email in your browser (|ARCHIVE|) The most important thing to know about the future of your work is this: anything that’s not creative can be...

Overhead, poses and present

February 21, 2016

View this email in your browser (|ARCHIVE|) Three thoughts to share with you in this issue of CreativeBoost. The new overhead “Every business is a technology...

February 7, 2016

View this email in your browser (|ARCHIVE|) One of the most important skills you can have is one that took me half my life to figure out. Don’t get too...

January 24, 2016

View this email in your browser (|ARCHIVE|) As someone who earns a living by writing persuasive copy, I often talk about the importance of understanding the...

Three for sixteen

January 10, 2016

View this email in your browser (|ARCHIVE|) Continuing an annual tradition inspired (http://chrisbrogan.com/3-words-2016/) by my good friend Chris Brogan,...

November 29, 2015

View this email in your browser (|ARCHIVE|) Life can put you on your knees. Or you can feel like you’re out of ideas. You can be overwhelmed by your to-do...

Fighting a fact

November 15, 2015

View this email in your browser (|ARCHIVE|) When faced with adversity, you have two choices in how you cope with the negative thinking that comes along with...

November 1, 2015

View this email in your browser (|ARCHIVE|) Steven Pressfield calls it Resistance (http://www.stevenpressfield.com/the-war-of-art/) . Others call it making...

Purpose and method, risk and opportunity

October 18, 2015

View this email in your browser (|ARCHIVE|) Ideas are like food. They are fuel for your work. They can take on any number of new shapes and flavours...

October 4, 2015

View this email in your browser (|ARCHIVE|) After a much longer than originally planned break, CreativeBoost is back. So, hello again. This newsletter will...

The kernels, not the husk

View this email in your browser (|ARCHIVE|) “Those who work much do not work hard.” —Henry David Thoreau It’s a mistake to think that good work is the direct...

Quietly judging you

View this email in your browser (|ARCHIVE|) “Create, and be true to yourself, and depend only on your own good taste.” —Duke Ellington It’s not enough to...

The truth about naming

View this email in your browser (|ARCHIVE|) Pink Floyd is a dumb name for a band. So is The Beatles. When they announced the iPad, Apple got plenty of flack...

Confidence isn't the problem you think it is

View this email in your browser (|ARCHIVE|) Creative people are notorious for struggling with confidence issues. But it’s not the problem you think it is....

It’s ok if you want to go, |NAME| (and it’s great if you want to stay). My newsletter, CreativeBoost, is not for everybody. That’s why periodically I do a...

It’s ok if you want to go, |NAME| (and it’s great if you want to stay). My newsletter, CreativeBoost, is not for everybody. That’s why periodically I do a...

|MC_PREVIEW_TEXT| It’s ok if you want to go, |NAME| (and it’s great if you want to stay). My newsletter, CreativeBoost, is not for everybody. That’s why...

I can't do this

View this email in your browser (|ARCHIVE|) Hey, |NAME|: the important takeaway in this issue of CreativeBoost hinges on two little stories that involve...

Swoop, declutter, do

View this email in your browser (|ARCHIVE|) “What you are thinking about, you are becoming.” Muhammad Ali Kurt Vonnegut once said there are two kinds of...

You are sure to run out of this

View this email in your browser (|ARCHIVE|) This issue of CreativeBoost starts off with something personal. But I promise you, there’s a point to it. I’m...

View this email in your browser (|ARCHIVE|) It was 1982 and Dave Stewart and Annie Lennox had their backs against the wall. Their record label had dropped...

The most beautiful problem you will ever struggle with

View this email in your browser (|ARCHIVE|) Whether you’re knee deep into your career or you’re still in school, you’re going to struggle with this question...

The only thing you need to know about business writing

View this email in your browser (|ARCHIVE|) Let me save you a lot of time and money that might otherwise be spent on taking business writing courses. There...

What simplicity is

View this email in your browser (|ARCHIVE|) Miles Davis was unhappy. By the mid 1950s, the jazz music scene in America was increasingly being occupied by...

The fight for honesty

February 22, 2015

View this email in your browser (|ARCHIVE|) “This is going to be a hard letter to write…” It was Spring 1936 and a young John Steinbeck, hungry for another...

Less what you know, more how you find

February 8, 2015

“I don’t think I create anything. I’m really serious. I discover the ideas.” —George Lois, art director & creative risk taker The longer I work in this...

What nobody else has thought

January 25, 2015

“Research is to see what everybody else has seen, and to think what nobody else has thought.” –Nobel Prize winning physiologist, Albert Szent-Gyorgyi Meet...

Knowing enough to be sure of nothing

January 11, 2015

View this email in your browser (|ARCHIVE|) Why does anyone hire someone for their creativity? Is it just a matter of needing to get a job done and not...

Three for fifteen

December 14, 2014

I don’t know about you, |NAME|, but I’m not a fan of new year’s resolutions. I tell you that upfront, knowing that it may be entirely reasonable of you to...