One Creative Moment is a daily email for founders, owners, and creators. You'll get insights, irreverence, and inspiration to help you build a better business & live a more creative life.
What is your true goal?
“My only goal is to basically not have to go back to employment.”
I’ve been thinking about this statement a lot lately as I try to settle into a way of being and working that lets me thrive. Not (just) financially but holistically (as a person).
Although I’ve come to realize this is my goal, too, the quote is not mine.
It comes from the latter half of the intro to this post from Paul Millerd, whose book The Pathless Path I’ve talked about before and continue to recommend.
The post is very interesting (an interview with a Twitter ghostwriter), I should add.
But seeing that truth writ so large in the pre-amble somewhat stops me in my tracks every time I try to re-read it.
I know there are deeper reasons behind that goal. (Like time/location/schedule flexibility and supporting and being present for loved ones.)
And I don’t want to make this a screed against employment, either.
If it works, it works.
I simply wanted to highlight the realization, as I reckon many business owners and soloists will also find it within themselves (yourselves).
Resonating,
James
One Creative Moment
One Creative Moment is a daily email for founders, owners, and creators. You'll get insights, irreverence, and inspiration to help you build a better business & live a more creative life.
One of the things missing from much of the “get AI to do everything for you” messaging is this fact: writing isn’t just a product, it’s a process. Yes, it’s nice to have “content.” But thinking that having it is the only outcome that matters is shallow and short-sighted. One of the things that has astounded me since I started writing daily(ish) emails back in November 2022 is how much it has changed me. It has vastly improved my ability to think—and to put those thoughts into clear, concise...
If you want to achieve more, do less. That is to say, build time into your day, your week, your year for quiet. In our house, following lunch, there is a period of mandated quiet time. It gives everyone a chance to do something they’d otherwise not do: nothing. It could be napping, reading, working on art, or even listening to something specific on headphones—as long as it’s quiet and done alone. For Kayte and I, it’s almost always napping, lol. During that time, we can recharge. We can...
“…We are ‘persuaded to spend money we don’t have on things we don’t need to make impressions that won’t last on people we don’t care about.’” This is Kate Raworth quoting Economist Tim Jackson in her book Doughnut Economics while discussing the power of aspiration in influencing human behaviour. Reading this, I realized that seeing (or at least feeling) this is what kept me from marketing for so long. (And what keeps me from engaging in much of its mainstream still.) I thought of it only as a...