My days are spent with writers and creators — dedicated and talented people who believe passionately in what they are creating. To be honest, that has been central to my life since I was 5 years old, and now I am 51. I grew up as an artist, and have always been surrounded by creators. My wife is an amazing artist and has been taking pottery classes for the past year and a half. Yesterday I took photos of the clay tools she has scattered around our home:
Nearly every day I hear updates of what she is working on, what worked, what didn’t (clay, it seems, can be very unforgiving when fired), and what she plans to do next. Each day she shows up and takes the risk of creating, even when she isn’t sure what will work.
I have helped thousands of writers get clarity on what they create, develop messaging that best expresses that to others, helped them establish their platforms, launch their books, and execute on marketing plans. I’ve written thousands of posts sharing advice and case studies, done hundreds of interviews, run dozens of workshops, and immersed myself in this work full-time for 14 years. My free time is spent studying the creative process, and listening to interviews from writers and creators about how they developed their craft and found success.
Yet something I always come back to is this: no one knows what works.
That is not meant to be depressing, I actually mean it in a very validating and hopeful way. If you feel lost, like it seems that everyone got a memo that you didn’t about the best hacks and tips to find creative success — that isn’t the case. Instead of seeking shortcuts or dancing to TikTok videos that you hate, I encourage you to focus on the foundations of your creative vision. Get radical clarity on what you create and why. Obsess about your messaging. View how you share as a craft. To truly care about that moment when what you create connects with your ideal reader or viewer. And feel good about yourself and your work in the process.
For many years, my friend
and I have had a mastermind call each week to discuss business challenges, creative goals, new ideas, and so much else. She is a writer and book coach, who now trains others to thrive as book coaches. Jennie and I have spent countless hours on the phone, but we have only met in person once, years ago, for a few minutes on the streets of New York City as I was rushing off to catch a train. I snapped a photo in that brief moment:We often discuss a specific idea or vexing problem one of us is navigating, and the primary phrase Jennie and I come back to again and again is this:
We don’t know what works, but doing stuff works.
What does that mean? This: keep going. Explore the idea. Launch the thing. Take the risk. Put something out there. Learn from it. Then iterate and try again.
I have seen the problems that crop up when people do the opposite: they stagnate because their idea doesn’t seem perfect. They become mired in uncertainty, so they shelve their creative work. They shy away from taking an action because they aren’t sure it is the exact right one. Then, years pass without creating or sharing.
The “doing stuff works” part of that phrase is meant to be a kick in the pants to live a life full of creating and connecting. To feel alive as a writer and artist.
For awhile now Jennie has been planning to launch a new program — a class called “The Art of Pricing” for book coaches. We have had long text chains and phone calls diving into specific questions around this program.
Why tell you about this? Because there is no one more prepared than Jennie is. Besides her years and years of experience, I have seen the pages and pages of spreadsheets of financial modeling, the survey feedback from her audience, and so much other data and strategies that she has developed. She. is. prepared.
Yet when it comes to launching something new, there is a moment of saying, “We don’t know what works, but doing stuff works.” Despite all the planning one can do, there is sometimes no one right answer for specific elements of this class. She has to do the best she can with the information she has in the moment, then launch it and see what happens. She wrote a whole post on how she wrestled with how to price this class, and how she created clarity from uncertainty.
I’ve been re-reading the Steve Jobs biography that Walter Isaacson wrote — I think this is my third time through the book. What jumps out at me is the story after story of someone who was offered a huge ownership stake in Apple for a small investment, and then they passed. This was at a time when Apple’s early hardware was revolutionary, and the two founders — Steve Jobs and Steve “Woz” Wozniak — impressed nearly everyone who met them:
Woz offered ownership of Apple’s first computer to his employer at the time, Hewlett-Packard. A senior executive said no thanks, feeling home computers were a “hobbyist product.”
An early partner was already given 10% of Apple. But then he got cold feet, and pulled out, receiving a total of $2,300 for his ownership stake in the company. Today, that 10% would be worth billions of dollars.
Soon after someone else was offered a 33% ownership stake in the company if he would invest $50,000. He recalls, “I was so smart, I said no. It’s kind of fun to think about that, when I’m not crying.” Today, he would have been one of the richest people in the world.
Atari was given a chance to buy the rights to Apple early on. They passed.
Commodore was then given the chance too, with Steve Jobs saying, “You might want to buy us for a few hundreds thousand dollars.” They passed too, deciding instead that it would be cheaper to develop and build their own machines. Apple is the second most successful company in the world at the moment, worth over $3 trillion dollars (with a “t.”) Commodore declared bankruptcy in 1994 and no longer exists.
Stories like these are why I am so obsessed with the experiences creators have before their work becomes successful. They remind me of the uncertainty of the creative process — and how that is an essential part of it! If you feel uncertain, maybe you are right where you should be. Embrace it.
Another story I always come back to is how The White Stripes’ song “Seven Nation Army” became an anthem in sports arenas. You may not know the name of the song, but you know the guitar riff and thumping drums.
However, when Jack White was creating the song, this is the feedback he received:
“We were at a sound check in Australia, and I started playing that riff, and I thought, ‘this is really cool.’ My friend came up, who was my roommate, Ben Swank, and I said, ‘What do you think of this?” He said, ‘Eh, it’s alright.’”
His friend basically dismissed it. Jack continues:
“We filmed the recording of that record, and I know that song was filmed for just a minute, because it was not considered anything interesting in that moment. Other things we were working on we thought were way more interesting. We should have filmed more of recording this song than we did! No one ever knows. The label didn’t want to release it as a single, they picked a different song. It goes to show you, even when you’ve got it right in front of your face, sometimes you still don’t know. You really have no idea what’s going to connect with other people.”
This is why we show up to create. Why we persist even when unsure of the direction we are taking. It’s why we take the chance to publish our work. And why we take the social risk to share our work with others who may connect with it deeply.
This is a process of finding who we are and what we are capable of. It is creating something new in the world. And it is giving the gift of your writing and art to those who desperately need it. Where they may feel a moment of solace or validation or connection at exactly the right time.
If you feel uncertain about your work, I encourage you to keep going. To show up to not only creating, but to share your work as a craft. And when you feel that moment of uncertainty where you pause and consider if you should simply stop, to remind yourself, “We don’t know what works, but doing stuff works.”
I would love to know: what keeps you creating and sharing? What specific mindsets, inspiration, or tactics do you use to keep doing so, even when you feel a sense of uncertainty? Please let me know in the comments.
For my paid subscribers this week, I shared this video: “How I'm launching something new: An inside look at my summer plans for paid subscribers.” You can see a preview (and become a paid subscriber) here.
Thank you for being here with me.
-Dan
Kids of the Week: a successful trip to the school carnival:
I have always loved to write but have gotten distracted many times. I have been blogging every day for 230 days. This morning, I read the daily prompt and felt unsure of what I wanted to say. So I started writing, and I found out. I don't know what works, but doing stuff sure does work.
I'll be honest—when I first figured out there was no rulebook to life, I was devastated. I was always a straight-A student, and rules & structure were the best way I knew how to succeed & to feel accomplished. It took me a while to find comfort in knowing that I might never know what I was doing or where I was going. It's been a joy to figuring it out thus far!
It's almost liberating, in a way, to understand that no one knows what they're doing, or "what works." We're all just here trying our best, & attaining small glimpses of clarity to inform our own processes along the way.