The Truth Behind What It Takes To Do Something Great

In an interview with Seth Godin he explained a scenario that he see’s far to often when people complain about writers block. Not being able to figure out what to write about and what to do. People complaining about not being good enough at this or at that. His response to this common issue is profound.

“People who talk to me about writers block, who talk to me about being stuck, I say,

‘show me your bad writing,’ and they never have any.

Show me the 6 novels you have written that are terrible, they don’t have them.

Show me the 18 screen plays, they don’t have them.

Because what there really saying is I want to have really good writing, then ill have something. But in my experience it begins with really bad writing.

If you have enough bad writing, someone can help you make it better.

If you have bad taste, you can learn to get better taste.

I don’t believe there’s any genetics associated whatsoever with what most people call talent.” — Seth Godin

Whether you write, you make music, art, videos, or whatever it is. What stops us from doing more is wanting to make something perfect. But here’s the ugly truth, we have to do bad work before we can do good work. We don’t allow ourselves do enough bad work so that we can eventually start making the good work.

I’m not suggesting that you actually make bad music or write terribly. That’s silly, rather you have to try your best and the reality is that its probably not going to be great. Creating more bad work is trying really hard to make something great but we are not quite there yet because we have not yet acquired the skills to make it great. The very act of doing is how we will acquire the skills we so desperately desire.

In Adam Grants book ‘Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World, he points out that:

Shakespeare in over 20 years created 37 plays and wrote 154 poems and yet he is known for 5 of those.

Mozart composed more than 600 pieces ,Beethoven produced 650, and Bach wrote over a thousand.

Yet, When the London Orchestra chose the 50 greatest pieces of classical music, the list included six pieces by Mozart, five by Beethoven, and three by Bach.

Picasso’s oeuvre includes more than 1,800 paintings, 1,200 sculptures, 2,800 ceramics, and 12,000 drawings, not to mention prints, rugs, and tapestries — only a fraction of which have garnered acclaim.

Einstein wrote papers on general and special relativity that transformed physics but he also had 248 publications that had minimal impact.

Edison has 1,093 patents but is known for one thing. — The Light bulb

The Truth

Look at the vast body of work each of them had and yet they were only recognized for a very small portion of it. The truth is that much of what we do people won’t notice. Maybe that’s because its actually not good enough to be noticed, or maybe its that we are just not showing up enough to be seen.

Either way the solution is to make more and do more.

When you ask yourself:

Why has nobody noticed me?

Why aren't more people watching my video’s?

How can I become a better writer?

How can I make better music?

How can I become a better artist?

Regardless of what it is you are doing, the right approach is imagine yourself sitting with Seth Godin asking for help with whatever it is you are doing. Knowing the question will be:

How many books have you written?

How many articles have you written?

How many songs written?

How many paintings have you made?

How many pieces have you designed?

If you have not made enough “bad” work how can we ever expect to make good work? If you were asked to take an inventory of what you have done and the truth is that you have not done very much because you don’t feel like its good enough. The key is to make more art.

What Do You Do When Your Art Doesn’t Work?

What happens when the conversation doesn’t happen, the product doesn’t sell, the consumer is not delighted, your boss is not happy, and the people aren’t moved?

Make more art.

It’s the only choice, isn’t it? Give more gifts. Learn from what you did and then do more. The only alternative is to give up and to become an old-school cog. Which means failing. Trying and failing is better than merely failing, because trying makes you an artist and gives you the right to try again.

-Seth Godin Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?

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