If you have it in your brain that you won’t start making your art until you have a paying audience to fund your life from here on out, then you simply might not be one of us.

I say I do this for other people but I’m really doing it for myself.

You won’t believe that your work isn’t for everyone until you work with clients who don’t respect your process. 

Can you imagine if I had picked one of those things and stuck with it?

If this isn’t proof that no creative work can please everyone, I don’t know what is. 

This was written more than 115 years ago. It somehow feels more relevant today. Check it out.

Once upon a season of immense stress (I was producing The Chainsmokers live set at Summit One Vanderbilt), I told myself something along these lines.

I’m not saying you need to abandon all morals in order to be successful, but you might need to abandon a bit more of your ego. 

The biggest advantage you can have as a creative person is simply enjoying your life.

The accessibility of writing shows us the resistance was always inside us. It was our fear, our ego that kept us from writing. 

I’m realizing that the goals I set at the beginning of the year might not be totally relevant now.

“My profession is hostage negotiation with reality. Reality says “I’m gonna kill it!” and I say “no, you’re not. Listen, put down the gun, let’s talk.”

It’s rare for me to admit I’m quitting on a goal. Usually I’ll just let the goal slowly fade in the rearview mirror as I drive away, talking about something new.

Part of the reason creative people jump from project to project might be because they haven’t found the thing they love yet. But a more likely explanation is that they have unrealistic expectations for their work.

As a younger creator, this would be all I could have daydreamed about. My favorite living author reshared my work. Now that I have more experience, I realize this is just another day.

“I don’t believe in draining the reservoir, do you see? I believe in getting up from the typewriter, away from it, while I still have things to say.”

This is something I started telling myself when I realized I couldn’t be everything for everybody.

We say we want to direct films, write novels, and perform on stage, but we don’t put in the work to get there.

“The Self-Confidence Jar (SCJ) concept is simple,” Hickman says. “Every time you make a promise to yourself and keep it, you are adding a ball to the SCJ. Every time you make a promise to yourself and break it, you are taking out a ball from the SCJ.” 

I have a lot of motivational tricks to keep me writing. But at the heart of those tricks is love. They wouldn’t work if I didn’t love it.