“If you want to be successful, you only need to do one thing: be proud of your work...”

Trying to motivate myself to lift weights is difficult. I get legalistic about it. I make bargains and cut deals with myself to do fewer reps, to lift less weight, and to stick to lifts I’m comfortable with. 

I help artists get out of their own way so they can create every day. Daily lessons, daily creative prompts, a supportive community, and a proven system for consistent creativity that works with your real, busy life.

I saw a tweet recently joking that the very first books were audiobooks.

Doesn’t a clear sense of self sound nice? While we’re at it, why not strong goals, more new adventures, and good friends to go along with that? Let’s talk about how to achieve this. 

Temporal landmarks are beginnings and ends of arbitrary periods of time. A new year, the first of the month, Mondays.

“When you talk crap about a rival, you’re reinforcing a sense of identity. You’re reinforcing who we are and who they are.” 

We hear perfectionism described a hundred different ways. Rarely do we hear it described as dangerous.

To own a business that generates you many millions of dollars, you have to become a certain type of person. Is that worth it?

“If your sense of taste is lower than that of the customers how will you impress them?”

“Reading is supposed to be an educational tool, and most people use it like sleeping pills.”

Of course there are days that are not enjoyable. Of course life presents hardship. Unavoidable, painful hardship. But who is the gatekeeper of your own enjoyment?

For a laugh (and some condolence) Google search “actors in commercials before they were famous.” My query just brought up a young Brad Pitt chomping Pringles on the beach.

“I suffer as always from the fear of putting down the first line. It is amazing the terrors, the magics, the prayers, the straightening shyness that assails one...”

Your mind will only allow you to create bad work for so long. Either it will force you to quit, or it will force you to make the work better. 

“I don’t think it has anything to do with the amount of work you are doing.”

When you look for a certain kind of car on the road, you start seeing it everywhere. This explains manifestation.

If rich people can feel poor, and poor people can feel rich, this tells me that feeling rich is relative. It’s malleable. It all depends.

Every time I start cleaning, ever since I was 15 years old, I start humming a funny song called One Little Corner. It’s ostensibly a cleaning song for grown-ups. The accidental genius? It’s spot-on with habit research. 

“We expend effort. We create value. It’s easy to get confused about which one we’re going to ultimately be compensated for.”