Read time: 5 minutes
MCC #75 – 29 Sep 2023
Welcome to My Creative Calling!
You can feel the tension building.
You anxiously scratch the left corner of your jawbone with your hand.
You look around your office.
Mess.
Mess. Mess. Mess.
What’s all that littered across your desk?
- Unfinished to-do lists
- scattered post-it notes
- and piles of unopened books.
You catch yourself biting your bottom lip.
You shake your head like a fish who has jumped out of water.
You breathe in deeply as you lean back in your chair.
“Ok, pull yourself together.”
What’s going on here?
It’s due date.
And you’ve done it again…
You haven’t even started!
Your jumbled hair now resembles Edward Scissor Hands from all that pulling and scratching.
You slowly slide both palms down the sides of your face, like spaghetti bolognese thrown against a wall.
“Ok,” you say to yourself while pretending to be calm as you nod your head back and forth:
“I’m just gonna have to wing it.”
“Here goes!”
A prompt for today’s letter
Can you tell the difference between art that sprang to mind and art that was crafted with forethought?
And what does this difference matter?
Art made accidentally has no more or less weight than art created through sweat and struggle.
Whether it took months or minutes does not matter.
Quality isn’t based on the amount of time invested.
So long as what emerges is pleasing to us, the work has fulfilled its purpose.
Rick Rubin
Not your average week
It’s been an interesting couple of weeks.
My family stayed over while a family member was hospitalised.
Time seemed to evaporate…
You know how it is:
Your days are consumed with family dinners, deep discussions, and commuting back and forth from the hospital.
The week becomes a total blur.
But somehow, I managed to get the newsletter done.
I cleared a couple of ours to “smash something out” so I didn’t leave my audience hanging.
I did not feel like creating.
Far from it.
But you know what?
I got a big surprise!
It’s funny how things work out!
Here’s a message I sent to my coach:
And given the family drama, I had no time to do my usual newsletter process.
So I did a rush job with a random topic off the top of my head — on craving LESS, but more depth.
So no planning whatsoever, pure flow…
And guess what?
I had a bunch of people reply, telling me how much they loved it, and the topic resonated!
More feedback than I usually get.
So there is something there.
An unexpected result
Yep.
I did a rush job.
I felt like a hack.
And you know what?
People seemed to LOVE it!
Way more feedback than I usually get!
The topic and style resonated.
I uncovered some vital truths in my unplanned flow state.
What does this mean?
Am I doing things wrong?
Usually, I meticulously plan out newsletter topics and spend hours putting it all together.
But then, no one seems to care.
Hmmm.
We live in an interesting world.
And this presents a timely reminder:
How much effort you put in doesn’t necessarily correlate to how much value you are delivering.
We are probably huffing and puffing too hard for not much gain.
But another insight from Rick Rubin comes to mind:
Spontaneity
Yes, that sure is true.
On the one hand, I could say I banged out a quick and effortless newsletter last week.
- No prep.
- No planning.
- But good result.
So maybe I winged it.
But on the other hand, there is another argument:
I had been prepping for that newsletter over the last two years. Or maybe my whole life!
How did I get to the point where I could quickly pull together a newsletter that resonated deeply?
Well, it was my 74th weekly newsletter.
Those 74 weeks of continuous showing up have given me a level of mastery. I’ve been grinding through the process of thinking, writing, editing and publishing for a long time.
Let’s say I conservatively spend 5 hours a week on those newsletters (sometimes it’s much more).
That’s 370 hours of practice in writing newsletters.
So, I shouldn’t discount that fact from my ability to produce something in a moment spontaneously.
That’s not considering all the time each week I spend reading other people’s newsletters, listening to creator podcasts, and thinking about newsletters.
And then there is all the general content I consume from reading books, listening to podcasts, YouTube and scrolling social media content.
Surely, all that has an impact.
So, what am I trying to show you here?
Well, you are probably good at something you aren’t giving yourself credit for.
You have experience.
And you could be better using that experience, without all the huffing and puffing that you default towards.
Where have you put the reps in?
Where do you have runs on the scoreboard?
Maybe it’s time you started giving yourself credit for that.
And not only recognising that.
But also finding ways you can get paid for that.
I see this all the time with fellow coaches. They charge by the hour for their time. Still, they fail to factor in what makes them super-valuable to their clients — the thousands of hours of experience and thousands of dollars they have put into learning from courses, masterminds and training.
Those clients aren’t paying for your time.
They are paying for a transformation.
They are paying for a lifetime of insight and your unique gifts.
All your experience could be a goldmine of wisdom to someone else.
And as a parallel question, is there something where you would like to have that spontaneous skill in the future?
So, where do you need to start putting in reps today to make that possible?
Happy pondering.
Great artists often labour to make their work appear effortless.
Sometimes they mind spend years meticulously crafting and refining a composition to appear as if it were made in a day or a moment.
Rick Rubin
Reflection
What is the equivalent of your experience? (re: my spontaneous newsletter example)
Where have you put the reps in?
How can you start to acknowledge and use that to your advantage?
Maybe you no longer need to view your craft through the lens of struggle.
And once you recognise all that relevant life experience, learning, and your unique gifts, are you underpricing yourself?
Remember, you have been prepping for this your whole life.
Don’t take that lightly.
Finally, what reps do you need to start putting in today? So that you can be a master in the future.
A quote to ponder
It always reminds me of the story about the woman who approached Picasso in a restaurant, asked him to scribble something on a napkin, and said she would be happy to pay whatever he felt it was worth.
Picasso complied and then said, ‘That will be $10,000.’
‘But you did that in thirty seconds,’ the astonished woman replied.
‘No,’ Picasso said. ‘It has taken me forty years to do that.’
Mark McCormack
What happened this week
Poetry & Purpose
Follow The Call
You can no longer hide,
for it’s married to the soul.
And if the soul is not nourished,
misery awaits.
Final thoughts
Today’s writing background music playlist was Wolfmother by Wolfmother on Spotify.
I hope you enjoyed this letter, please share it with a friend.
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It would be great to have you on board!
Cheers!
Matt K. Head
When you’re ready, here’s how I can help you:
Coaching
- Find more meaning and fulfilment in your work
- Gain clarity and start taking action on your creative journey
