Planner by Saint Violet
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The Rundown 14: The Market Isn’t Oversaturated, It Needs More Individuality
The Rundown 15: Starting Matters More Than Being Ready…
The Rundown 16: What You Create in the Process & Who You Become is the Real Art
Hey Everyone,
Before I begin this week’s Rundown…
**I’m currently developing an All-in-One Notion Dashboard to help you streamline your creativity, productivity and income — so you can manage the technical, creative and financial aspect of your work easier. it's not just another project management tool or content calendar, but a complete operating system for the modern creative professional who needs to be both artistically fulfilled and commercially successful. You can join the waitlist here.
Now, back to our regularly scheduled program…
The Rundown — Here’s what I found over the course of this week that has helped me, inspired me or gave me some creative pushes…
On entrepreneurship and creativity — “Entrepreneurship is really just organized creativity. Contribution needs structure, value needs vision and business amplifies purpose.” (—Matt Gottesman) — When you really think about it, every one of us has creativity built into us. Yes, the tool is different, as is the medium to which we exert that creativity, but we all have the ability to take something and make it into something else with our unique perspective. Entrepreneurship is simply the vehicle that scales the impact of that. It brings structure, discipline and commitment to something that is needing a foundation to stand on and hold up properly in order to serve it’s highest capacity.
On investigating your dreams and hunches — “I feel like we limit ourselves as human beings. I feel like we’ve got to be taking risks. Don’t fear embarrassment, don’t fear any hardships. If you don’t try and you don’t fail, you’ll never know what your limits are. You’ll be limiting yourself most of the time. When you dream we all come up with these crazy ideas and we often think that’s just crazy but I think there’s something there. It’s our duty as human beings to investigate what that is… not to neglect it, or figure out how hard it is to get there or what it’s going to take and go for it.” (—Lewis Hamilton) — A great video by @bymaximise on Instagram of Lewis Hamilton’s journey. Our job is not to understand the “how.” Our job is to execute the hunches and let the “how” sort itself out.
On making imperfect work often — “I can just focus on making stuff that’s imperfect in my opinion and if you make enough imperfect work, other people will start to see your imperfect work as perfect.” (—Tom Noske) — Perfectionism will stall everything… I consistently promote the idea that we should “ship” our work as often as possible so we don’t stay in the weeds too long. Yes, it should be quality work, and yes, it will have imperfections… but your imperfections don’t matter in comparison to the value you’re giving to others. They get the point you’re trying to make and that impact is more important than perfect and unseen.
On increasing your rate of experimentation — “You have to increase your rate of experimentation... if we do 100 experiments this month, five of them will work but we don’t know which ones they are. So our job isn’t to try and pick our bets, it’s to increase our bets. Any advice I give on growing a podcast or a YouTube channel is to increase your rate of experiments by 10.” (—Steven Bartlett) — This pairs well with removing “perfectionism.” Your job is to find the signals in a world of noise… try things, see what works, see what doesn’t. When you find the things that work, experiment with those some more… this is growth. The problem a lot of people have is trying to figure out the algorithm when they need to figure out the right messages that cut through the noise.
On your creation being a practice and NOT a performance — “Are you creating for yourself or an audience? What’s the difference? Yourself is the fullest expression of your gifts… the people looking for you will find you. Doing things for an audience is trying to figure out the trends so you can make others happy but lose your creative autonomy in the process.” — On a recent podcast, I spoke about why we must create for ourselves first and foremost so that we can truly birth what it is we’re here to contribute, what you create is more important than the metrics society places on your work, loving your work more than the algorithms, avoiding trends, making work for you and attracting the right people and more — My latest podcast on this can be found here (APPLE, SPOTIFY)
On not worrying about the numbers or metrics — “Don’t let these numbers f—k with your creativity. I hope today’s kids, or the adults that’s 40 that wants to start a clothing line or sew clothes or make carpets or whatever, don’t allow the numbers and the metrics that is “so important now” to f—k up what can end up being one of the greatest things ever.” (—Tyler the Creator) — Once you realize its the compound of your work, you’ll wish you had started putting out more of it. We never really know what will resonate, what will take off, what will become “mainstream” so you have to block that out and just create. The fact is, your compounded work will be your portfolio of hits. Over time, as newer work gets noticed, older work may take off.
On failing 9 times before success happened — “My first nine businesses didn’t really amount to anything. Nine. As in the first one spent time, f—king failed. Second one, this one will be different… f—king failed… it’s painful as sh-t because the whole time everyone is telling you ‘I told you so’ and they’re right… today, but not forever.” (—Alex Hormozi) — I want you to consider that you’re not alone. We all launch things and they can go absolutely nowhere. We launch some more and the same. The key is to stay in the game long enough to allow your wins to find you. We don’t know what’s going to work and what’s not, but either way, we become a better person because of it. You’re not losing along the way… you’re stacking skillsets and experience… remember that.
On talent versus dedication — Talent is cheap; dedication is expensive. It will cost you your life.” (—Irving Stone) — I have found that a life of routine, consistency, dedication and devotion will cost you every other type of life that comes without it. You sacrifice so much of a different version of you in order to be the best version God has for you… in doing so, you might find a mourning process that can feel isolating and lonely at times, but a necessary step in surrendering to your faith and purpose… something that on the other side of can never compare to any other life. Don’t be afraid to devote your life to your higher calling and make sure you have grace in your processes.
On wisdom from Warren Buffet & Charlie Munger — “Wisdom is prevention” — I love that the list below started with wisdom. I relate to every single one of these quotes below and I thought it would be imperative to share with all of you. It’s in our wisdom that we move from experience to knowing better in order to make a different choice. Will we get it right all the time? No. But wisdom allows us to change our world view and see it through a different lens… one that is fundamentally trying to advance you, instead of drown you.
Playlist — Chillout House Music Mix - Surrounded by Nature — Another great playlist from Nariki on YouTube @nariki of Chill House to work to… great for creating, designing, writing, computer work.
What You Create In the Process & Who You Become In the Process is the Real Art
The real masterpiece isn't just what you build—it's who you become while building it.
Go create!
Until next week,
– Matt
P.S. If you found value in this week's insights, consider sharing this post with someone who might need this reminder about the power of individuality. ↙️
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Yes exactly 🩶
Another great read filled with quality insights & inspiration. Thanks Matt. Respect ✊