Transcription
I'm really excited to welcome you to today's lesson because this is a lesson about the creator's struggle. And I'm delighted to walk you through six struggles that I've experienced as a creative person. A lot of it comes from when I was writing the Everyday Hero Manifesto. I'm going to jump right in.
So the first struggle is the struggle to start. Often, we are our own worst critics, and we're afraid to start because we're afraid. We're afraid of pushing a masterwork into the world that might make us uncomfortable. We're afraid to do work that might not succeed. We're afraid to push something out into the world, into the marketplace, that people might laugh at. We're afraid of failing. So, as simple as it sounds, there will never be a better time for you to start your best work. That metaphorical moment where everything the stars align, and you have the right energy, and the right inspiration, and your family's taken care of, and it's not that busy at work, things slow down so you can do that project that will move the needle. That time will never come.
So the first struggle is the struggle to start. The antidote to that is just get it done. Just start it. When I was working on the Everyday Hero Manifesto, I had a very busy life. I was creating online courses, giving leadership presentations around the world, running a significant team, mentoring my mentoring clients, running live events. I needed to get away from that full life. And so what I did was, I booked a hotel room at a wonderful hotel in Tribeca for 16 days. I told my family, "I am getting lost." I call it "going ghost." I told my team, "Please don't send me even one message. You all run the business." And I locked it. I basically locked myself in a hotel room for 16 days and I made a commitment: "I'm not leaving this hotel room until I finish the first draft." And as I mentioned earlier, I wrote the first draft on a phone. And then obviously, after that, I printed out the manuscript, I iterated, I'd make hundreds of changes, give it to my assistant, and my executive assistant, Angela. She would then bring the pages back to my house. I'd do another round. And that's how we did it, round after round after round after round, until the book was done. But struggle number one is the struggle of starting. Find a quiet place. Remember, there will never be a perfect time, and get the project going.
Number two, the struggle of continuing. Well, there is that moment of what I call the moment of first inspiration. It is easy to start a project. It is easy to start the app, or start the book, or start the screenplay, or start the startup. Or start the family. No, that's not really that easy. But there is a moment of inspiration when the first, when a new idea lands on us that we're really excited. What makes mastery, what makes heroism, is how you show up at what I call the midpoint of the project. What also makes mastery is how do you show up in the desert of creativity, long after the inspiration has vanished. And so you will face that struggle of continuing. Just like when I was writing the Everyday Hero, I was inspired, and then I'd reach these roadblocks, and I felt like giving up. And we live in a world where it's hustle and grind, work all the time, never give up. I just want to be totally transparent. There were so many times where one day I'd start writing the Everyday Hero Manifesto, and I was just on fire. I was just in flow state because I think real creativity is, it's not really a science, it's an art. And I think there is a muse, and the muse just showed up on certain days. I had endless energy, the words just flowed, and I ran with it. And maybe the next day, I'd sit down, I'd try to be disciplined. I believe in routines, and nothing came. And I know there are a lot of authors and writers, for example, they'll say, "Well, just keep on writing, and the muse will show up." Well, that's not how it works for me. When I was writing the Everyday Hero Manifesto, on one of those hard days where what I was writing was just, it was so, the heavy lifting was so heavy, and what I was writing wasn't at the standard I wanted to offer to you. And so what's the point of continuing? So I'd go sunbathe, or I'd go out on a mountain bike ride, or I'd go read, or say to my family, "Let me, let me make you lunch." And then I'd start again the next day, which was a fresh day. And I hope that's helpful because there are a lot of people who suggest, "If you're not creating every day consistently, you should feel guilty. You should feel ashamed." I just want to tell you, I trust the muse. My product, I'd say 10 years ago, I was like a machine. It was like I always had to be productive every second, otherwise I'd feel I was wasting time or doing something wrong. And I think the dominant messaging of society is, if you're not always productive, you're doing something wrong. But I, I now, I think I'm a much more true artist. And it's, I trust the seasons. I trust my natural rhythms. I trust the muse. And I'll have three days of amazing productivity and creativity where it all flows, and maybe on the fourth day, I'm tired cognitively, emotionally, spiritually. So everyone talks about mindset is everything. I don't just create from a mindset, that's just my intellect. I create from my heart, my emotions. I poured so much of my feelings and my emotions into the Everyday Hero Manifesto. So of course, I'm going to be tired emotionally. I'd sit at my desk for five hours writing. So of course, maybe on the fourth day, I'd be tired physically. And to me, writing the Everyday Hero Manifesto was a spiritual pursuit. I wanted to write a book that would help as many people as possible live their genius, do amazing work, build fortunes, live a beautiful life, be spiritually free. So of course, maybe after three days of the magic flowing, on the fourth day, I'd be spiritually depleted as well. And I just wanted you to know, it's absolutely okay to take that day off. You might want to take three days off. You might want to take a week off. Trust your instinct because it's so much more powerful than your intellect. And I almost call this non-linear productivity, non-linear artistry. And it's very contrarian in our society that says you need to have every ritual working every single day, and if not, you're a failure, you should feel ashamed. To me, now, I'm more trusting. Maybe it's my maturity, but I'm more trusting. And when it's flowing, and when the quality is beautiful, I go. And if I hit one of those days where it's not flowing, I don't. And I think that's absolutely okay.
Third struggle: the struggle of self-doubt. When I was writing the Everyday Hero Manifesto, I had early readers who said, "Don't put in the models because you're telling so many stories of your life and other stories. When you bring in the models that you've introduced, it's just, it'll break people out of, you know, the joy of the storytelling." I had other people saying, "This." Other people said, "Why are you putting in poetry?" Other people said, "You're sharing too much of your personal stories of tragedy." Some people said, "Don't use pictures. We can't put." I was actually told, "We can't put pictures in books." I said, "Why not? They're in all sorts of memoirs. Why can't we use pictures?" So this is what happens when you dream your biggest dreams, and you want to do something that is very different, and you want to innovate, and you have a vision for your project, whatever that project is. You will encounter the limitations and restrictions of the people around you, even if they're people on your team or suppliers. You must overcome them. One of the things that made Apple, Apple, under Steve Jobs was, for example, with the iPhone. He was told, what, six, six weeks before the release of the iPhone, six weeks. He said, "I want this type of screen on the iPhone." And his team said, "It's never been made. What you want is not available." And yet, six weeks later, it was released with a screen, I think was done by Corning. My point is, industry competitors, what they, why they weren't as great as Apple under Steve Jobs was, every time, here's a key point, every time they encountered a constraint or a wall, they diluted the vision. Steve Jobs was different. He said, "Here is the vision. Now find a way to honor the vision." Which is incredibly powerful. So you're going to face self-doubt. It is a struggle, and you've just got to continue, and you've got to manage the self-doubt. And you just, you've got to trust that your vision is honest. You've got to trust your vision is your vision because it's meant to be done. And remember that not everyone around you are visionaries. So trust it, and just get it done versus listening to people who say, "This is why you can't do that app," and here's why, and no one's ever done that. I mean, look at all the innovation. It had never been done before. But then the genius who brought it into the world got it done.
The fourth struggle that you as a creator will face is what I call midpoint exhaustion. So when I was writing the Everyday Hero Manifesto, like, it took me 16 months of devotion and handcrafting it and working on it. And midway through, I was just tired. We were in a pandemic. I had gone through the book so many times, in so many iterations. I've probably, there's a chapter in there called "Kill Your Darlings." Right? There were chapters I adored that I said, "I need to take those out because it affected the pace, it affected the rhythm." And so I reached a point of midpoint exhaustion where I just couldn't do it anymore. And I said, "You know, I think the book is very good. I can just submit it to my publisher." They were very, very happy with it. And then I said to myself, "Let me just take a little bit of a break. Take some time off." Because when you're tired, you're never thinking as clearly. I took a few days off, and I realized it was not the best I had to give. And so I got back to work, born anew, and I continued to the endpoint. You will feel midpoint exhaustion. Take a break, but just trust the process. And when the midpoint exhaustion happens, give yourself permission to go on a vacation, to just do some fun things, and to get away from the work so that you come back fresh.
The fifth of the creator's struggle is the struggle against the trolls. Well, when you do anything fresh, when you bring your vision to the world, when you start a new project, the critics come out to play. And in the Everyday Hero Manifesto, I talk about Winston Churchill, and it was something about like, "If you listen to the barking dogs, you're never going to do anything great." And I really do believe that everyone is born as an artist. Everyone is born with this great ethical ambition. Everyone is born to do something heroic with their lives. But many people get knocked down, they get scarred, they get disappointed. And so they become critics, and they're very frustrated, and many of them are angry and jealous. And so they will see you, eyes of blazing creativity, full of energy to do something amazing, like build a great business, build a great life, build a great family, run a marathon, or get super fit in another way, have an amazing intimate love story with your partner, be a great parent. They will see your dream of building a monument, writing a movie, or whatever it is, and that will activate their latent resentment on them not living their promise. And most people don't have the awareness to go, "Oh, this is me. I shouldn't blame. I should go heal what's, what they, in their shining possibility, have activated." Instead, they will project their anger onto you, and they will criticize you, and they will find fault with your work, and they will try to bring you down. Do not allow the arrows of the critics to slow you down. You can change the world. You can listen to the critics. You can't do both.
And the sixth struggle you're going to face as a creator, and this is one I really faced with the Everyday Hero Manifesto, it was like, when do you end? And I call this the struggle of finishing. I just couldn't let go of the book. My editor was saying, "It's good. It's good. We're under a timeline. We've got to get the book to the printer if we want to make the publication date." And I would, I just, I couldn't let it go. I remember right down to the final minute, there was a chapter in the book, it was the one about Gorey Downey, the anti-fragile artist in the shiny purple suit. And I reread the chapter, and I mentioned about him passing, and I was in Montenegro, and I said, "As the sun set," I learned that he had passed away, and the sun set on the Mediterranean. And then I just, I realized Montenegro is on the Adriatic. And there were a few other little changes. There was one of the models where I didn't like the orientation of the arrow. And so I, I called, um, the publisher, and I think she's called, her title is the publishing director. And I called Noel. I said, "Could we do a phone call?" I was in Bermuda at the time. She got on the phone, and I said to her, "Look, if you could just make these changes, I would be so grateful." And she said, "Absolutely." And my point is really, you will never be perfectly happy, even if you've created a masterpiece. I think Tolstoy, even after submitting War and Peace, was saying, "I wish I changed a few of these characters." I think Da Vinci, after creating the Mona Lisa, said, "I, I don't think I got her smile quite right." I think is it Pierre Eiffel who made the Eiffel Tower or designed it? I think he probably said, "Ah, it's a little not exactly what I wanted." If I think about all of the great creative people, they, on reflection, like nothing is perfect. As what I'm trying to say. And so it's a delicate balance between saying, "Look, you know what? I've done an amazing job. I've done my best. This is all I could possibly do. Now is the time to to submit it or to finish it." And just know that you're always going to want, wish you had made changes on reflection. Then you're going to say, "Robin, how do I know when to finish?" And you know what? I'll simply say, you will know when you know. It's intuitive. Don't make an intellectual. Trust your muse, and you will know when it's finished. And you will know when you can still do even better. And you'll get to a point where you just go, "I got to a point with the Everyday Hero Manifesto. I just couldn't read the manuscript anymore. I'd been through it so many times. I polished it so much. I just went, 'I'm done.'" And I submitted it. Hope that's helpful. See you in the next lesson.