1. The world isn’t waiting for more of the same.
2. Greatness begets greatness. It’s infectious.
3. The best work is the work you're excited about.
4. When flowing, keep going.
5. Impatience is an argument with reality.
6. The work reveals itself as you go.
7. The way we do anything is the way we do everything.
8. Whatever we concentrate on we get.
9. Listening is suspending disbelief.
10. There are no shortcuts.
11. We are performing for an audience of one.
12. The ability to look deeply is the root of creativity.
13. Look for what you notice but no one else sees.
14. We are dealing in a magic realm. Nobody knows why or how it works.
15. Our calling is to make beautiful works to the best of our ability.
16. For both the artist and the athlete, the details matter, whether the players recognize their importance or not.
17. The impossible only becomes accessible when experience has not taught us limits.
18. Failure is the information you need to get where you’re going.
19. The only person you’re ever competing against is yourself. The rest is out of your control.
20. Just one habit, at the top of any field, can be enough to give an edge over the competition.
21. If there is a rule to creativity that’s less breakable than the others, it’s that the need for patience is ever-present.
22. Stepping away and returning with fresh eyes brings clearer insight into next steps.
23. It’s helpful to remember that there are forces at work beyond our comprehension.
24. The great artists throughout history are the ones able to maintain this childlike enthusiasm and exuberance naturally.
25. Because there’s an endless amount of data available to us and we have a limited bandwidth to conserve, we might consider carefully curating the quality of what we allow in.
26. No matter what tools you use to create, the true instrument is you.
27. Reread the same book over and over, and you’ll likely find new themes, undercurrents, details, and connections.
28. You are part of something much larger than can be explained—a world of immense possibilities.
29. Crafting contains a paradox. To create our best work, we are patient and avoid rushing the process, while at the same time we work quickly without delay.
30. Even the masterpieces that have been produced on tight timelines are the sum of decades spent patiently laboring on other works.
31. Fear of criticism. Attachment to a commercial result. Competing with past work. Time and resource constraints. The aspiration of wanting to change the world. And any story beyond “I want to make the best thing I can make, whatever it is” are all undermining forces in the quest for greatness. (Read that last sentence twice)
32. If you make the choice of reading classic literature every day for a year, rather than reading the news, by the end of that time period you’ll have a more honed sensitivity for recognizing greatness from the books than from the media.
33. The objective is not to learn to mimic greatness, but to calibrate our internal meter for greatness. So we can better make the thousands of choices that might ultimately lead to our own great work.
34. If we can tune in to the idea of making things and sharing them without being attached to the outcome, the work is more likely to arrive in its truest form.
35. Each habit might seem small, but added together, they have an exponential effect on performance.
36. The more of the work you can see, the easier it becomes to gracefully place the final details clearly where they belong.
37. Art is choosing to do something skillfully, caring about the details, bringing all of yourself to make the finest work you can.
38. There’s an abundant reservoir of high-quality information in our subconscious, and finding ways to access it can spark new material to draw from.
39. We’re affected by our surroundings, and finding the best environment to create a clear channel is personal and to be tested.
40. To hone your craft is to honor creation. By practicing to improve, you are fulfilling your ultimate purpose on this planet.
41. The object isn’t to make art, it’s to be in that wonderful state which makes art inevitable.
Full episode below. A lot of ideas covered in 42 minutes. You'll want to listen twice:
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