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The Book About Creativity That I’m Revisiting This Year
“Creative Calling” the book that most impacted my life
Books are like people; they have particularities that can bring something to the table, but they aren’t a match for everyone. Some books please most people, while others only fit a few, and that’s pretty much how humans see each other.
When a book is well written and its message is meaningful, it is more likely to connect with a broader audience, but there will always be exceptions.
Take for example Thinking, Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman, mentioned by many as an all-time favorite, but one that I’ve always struggled to go through, despite finding its ideas very interesting. I’m sure it is great, but it’s not for me.
Then there are books that may not be huge bestsellers but that resonate with you in such a way that you think they were written just for you.
In 2019 I found one of these books: Creative Calling: Establish a Daily Practice, Infuse Your World with Meaning, and Succeed in Work + Life, by Chase Jarvis.
I’ve followed Jarvis’ work since 2016, first through his classes on Creative Live, the company he co-founded, and then through his social media presence and YouTube channel, so I knew he was a great content creator and someone who was worth listening to, so when he launched his book in 2019 I didn’t think twice and got it, and I can tell you that it has changed my life.
I re-read the book last year, and I‘m reading it again this year because I can always reinforce what I learned from it.
Becoming a Creator
The first time I read Creative Calling was around the same time I started writing on various platforms, and it was crucial to my mind shift, as it helped me to understand that to be a writer the only thing I needed was to write, or as Jarvis puts it:
“Declare yourself a creator, and that label will become a valuable and crucial part of your identity.”
This made me realize that we don’t need external approval to follow our calling, we don’t need anybody’s validation to call ourselves creators, we just need to create.
