1. Ignore everybody.
The more original your idea is, the less good advice other people will be able to give you.
When I first started with the cartoon-onback- of-bizcard format, people thought I
was nuts. Why wasnʼt I trying to do something more easy for markets to digest, i.e.,
cutie-pie greeting cards or whatever?
You donʼt know if your idea is any good the moment itʼs created. Neither does anyone else.
The most you can hope for is a strong gut feeling that it is. And trusting your feelings is not
as easy as the optimists say it is. Thereʼs a reason why feelings scare us.
And asking close friends never works quite as well as you hope, either. Itʼs not that they
deliberately want to be unhelpful. Itʼs just they donʼt know your world one millionth as well as you know your world, no matter how hard they try, no matter how hard you try to explain.
Plus, a big idea will change you. Your friends may love you, but they donʼt want you to
change. If you change, then their dynamic with you also changes. They like things the way
they are, thatʼs how they love you—the way you are, not the way you may become.
2. The idea doesn’t have to be big.
It just has to change the world. The two are not the same thing. We all spend a lot of time being impressed by folks weʼve never met.
Somebody featured in the media whoʼs got a big company, a big product, a big movie, a big bestseller. Whatever. And we spend even more time trying unsuccessfully to keep up with them. Trying to start up our own companies, our own products, our own film projects, books and whatnot.
Iʼm as guilty as anyone. I tried lots of different things over the years, trying desperately to pry my career out of the jaws of mediocrity. Some to do with business, some to do with art, etc.
One evening, after one false start too many, I just gave up. Sitting at a bar, feeling a bit
burned out by work and life in general, I just started drawing on the back of business cards
for no reason. I didnʼt really need a reason. I just did it because it was there, because it
amused me in a kind of random, arbitrary way.
3. Put the hours in.
Doing anything worthwhile takes forever. 90% of what separates successful people and failed people is time, effort, and stamina.
I get asked a lot, “Your business card format is very simple. Arenʼt you worried about somebody ripping it off?” Standard Answer: Only if they can draw more of them than me, better than me. What gives the work its edge is the simple fact that Iʼve spent years drawing them. Iʼve drawn thousands. Tens of thousands of man-hours. So if somebody wants to rip my idea off, go ahead. If somebody wants to overtake me in the business card doodle wars, go ahead. Youʼve got many long years in front of you. And unlike me, you wonʼt be doing it for the joy of it. Youʼll be doing it for some self-loathing, ill-informed, lame-ass mercenary reason. So the years will be even longer and far, far more painful. Lucky you.
4. If your biz plan depends on you suddenly being “discovered” by some big shot, your plan will probably fail.
Nobody suddenly discovers anything. Things are made slowly and in pain.
I was offered a quite substantial publishing deal a year or two ago. Turned it down. The company sent me a contract. I looked it over.
5. You are responsible for your own experience.
Nobody can tell you if what youʼre doing is good, meaningful or worthwhile. The more
compelling the path, the lonelier it is. Every creative person is looking for “The Big
Idea.” You know, the one that is going to catapult them out from the murky depths of
obscurity and on to the highest planes of incandescent lucidity.
The one thatʼs all love-at-first-sight with the Zeitgeist. The one thatʼs going to get them invited to all the right parties, metaphorical or otherwise.
6. Everyone is born creative; everyone is given a box of crayons in kindergarten.
Then when you hit puberty they take the crayons away and replace them with books
on algebra etc. Being suddenly hit years later with the creative bug is just a wee
voice telling you, “Iʼd like my crayons back, please.”
So youʼve got the itch to do something. Write a screenplay, start a painting, write a book, turn your recipe for fudge brownies into a proper business, whatever. You donʼt know where the itch came from; itʼs almost like it just arrived on your doorstep, uninvited. Until now you were quite happy holding down a real job, being a regular person...Until now.
7. Keep your day job.
Iʼm not just saying that for the usual reason i.e., because I think your idea will fail. Iʼm
saying it because to suddenly quit oneʼs job in a big olʼ creative drama-queen moment is
always, always, always in direct conflict with what I call “The Sex & Cash Theory.”
THE SEX & CASH THEORY: The creative person basically has two kinds of jobs. One is the sexy, creative kind. Second is the kind that pays the bills. Sometimes the task in hand covers both bases, but not often. This tense duality will always play center stage. It will never be transcended.
8. Companies that squelch creativity can no longer compete with companies that champion creativity.
Nor can you bully a subordinate into becoming a genius.
Since the modern, scientifically-conceived corporation was invented in the early half
of the Twentieth Century, creativity has been sacrificed in favor of forwarding the interests of the “Team Player.”
9. Everybody has their own private Mount Everest they were put on this earth to climb.
You may never reach the summit; for that you will be forgiven. But if you donʼt
make at least one serious attempt to get above the snow line, years later you will
find yourself lying on your deathbed, and all you will feel is emptiness.
This metaphorical Mount Everest doesnʼt have to manifest itself as “Art.” For some people,
yes, it might be a novel or a painting. But Art is just one path up the mountain, one of many.
With others, the path may be something more prosaic. Making a million dollars, raising a
family, owning the most Burger King franchises in the Tri-State area, building some crazy
over-sized model airplane, the list has no end.
10. The more talented somebody is, the less they need the props.
Meeting a person who wrote a masterpiece on the back of a deli menu would not surprise
me. Meeting a person who wrote a masterpiece with a silver Cartier fountain pen on an antique writing table in an airy SoHo loft would SERIOUSLY surprise me.
Abraham Lincoln wrote The Gettysburg Address on a piece of ordinary stationery that he had
borrowed from the friend in whose house he was staying. James Joyce wrote with a simple pencil and notebook. Somebody else did the typing, but only much later.
