Rewrite the Rules

“Absorb what’s useful, discard what is useless, and add what is specifically your own.”

— Bruce Lee

By 1964, Bruce Lee had started to gain a following. He had two martial arts schools in Oakland and Seattle, where he taught a modified version of wing chun, a martial art with foundations in kung fu. But he was growing skeptical of locking himself into a single martial arts discipline and weary of the loyalists who believed their style of combat was superior to everything else.

Lee started experimenting with minor changes in technique, testing new angles in his stances and movements. The changes weren’t dramatic—the classical wing chun style had been seared into his every movement since he began studying at thirteen years old in Hong Kong. But they were still changes. And the kung fu traditionalists took exception.

As Lee refined his approach, he would visit the Sun Sing Theater in San Francisco’s Chinatown, demonstrating his technique and voicing his perspective that unnecessary, performative, impractical movements hampered traditional martial arts. As Lee grew more vocal, the kung fu old guard in Chinatown grew more irritated. He was disrupting their ways, compromising the sacredness of kung fu, and someone needed to put him in his place.

Taking on the traditionalists

In the fall of 1964, Lee’s critics in San Francisco’s kung fu community issued a challenge. They proposed a fight between him and an opponent of their choosing. If their fighter won, Lee would have to stop teaching. And if Lee won, he could continue without opposition. Lee was 23 years old at the time and eager to prove them wrong.

The traditionalists selected a young, skilled kung-fu fighter, Wong Jack-Man, as their champion. In November, the delegation arrived in Oakland for the fight. The first order of business was laying down the rules. The traditionalists offered up one rule after another, but Lee pushed back. He wanted a street fight—anything goes—not a controlled, theatrical performance with an intricate scoring method. After some negotiation, the fight was on. Bruce Lee came out swinging.

After the initial exchange, Jack-Man sprinted away, attempting to exhaust Lee and leave him winded. Lee gave chase, trying to grab him from behind. The fight was a mess, a far cry from the combat routines each man had practiced in their gyms. Finally, Lee had Jack-Man on the ground. Lee stood over him, yelling in Cantonese, “Do you yield?” The fight was over in three minutes.

But after the victory, Lee didn’t feel victorious or vindicated. Something was still bothering him. In the weeks that followed, he realized that wing chun, even his modified version, hadn’t prepared him for an anything-goes scenario. Most of what he learned only prepared him for neatly defined scenarios or sparring in the gym. In the months and years that followed, Lee began to define his own martial art and philosophy—jeet kune do.

Bridging disciplines

Until this point, Lee used wing chun as his foundation and made slight adjustments. But as he developed jeet kune do, he emphasized formlessness and not getting trapped in a single style. He looked beyond standard martial arts for inspiration. From boxing, he took its footwork, jabs, bobs, weaves, and hooks; from fencing elements of range and the timing of the stop hit. He was open to anything that would prove useful in a real fight—practicality above all else.

Jeet kune do wasn’t about a specific style. The whole point was that it could take on any shape, style, or form. Techniques from seemingly disparate disciplines previously considered off-limits could be used at will. As long it was effective, kept your opponent off guard, and gave you an advantage, it was on the table. There wasn’t a single right way to fight—contrary to the teachings of many traditional martial arts practices, which forced students into a fixed pattern of movements and routines.

In the years following the fight in Oakland, Lee realized in its fullness what he had scratched the surface of. Most martial arts practices were built upon theories, clearly defined rules, and a neat set of movements. He referred to this type of performative fighting that protected both fighters as “dryland swimming.” These practices weren’t helpful in real fights and life-or-death scenarios where everything is unpredictable and self-defense matters most. The other person might fight dirty, have a weapon, or be an expert in any number of fighting styles. You won’t be able to pause the fight and enforce a neat set of rules.

Lee focused on adaptability and developing tools that applied to real-life scenarios. Forget style. Style is what had divided martial artists, restricting their growth by forcing them to adopt a “this or that” approach to combat. Lee’s approach was to use what worked and drop what didn’t. And this mindset is why many credit Lee as the father of mixed martial arts; because of his focus on using the most effective movement or technique based on the situation.

At some point in your own career, you will have to take the rules you learned, tear them up, and reimagine them. The whole point of learning frameworks is so you can break them in creative ways and create something of your own.

Questioning unwritten rules

Whatever industry we operate in has antiquated ways of doing things. Many of us become so accustomed to these unwritten rules or standard operating procedures that we stop observing them and accept them as truth. You must fight this urge to conform and preserve your ability to evaluate things from a fresh perspective. If you don’t, you’ll create work that’s derivative and halts any real progress or message you could help advance.

Purists don’t make progress because they’re removed from reality. They are so focused on how things should be that they become trapped by abstract rules, unable to perform in anything less than pristine conditions in their environments. They delude themselves into believing the best and right way has already been defined.

“This is the best method” or “this is how it has always been done” should set off your internal alarm. They’re a clear signal to question and challenge the status quo. The world doesn’t need another person playing it safe, afraid to go against the grain. The world needs you. And the best way you can put yourself across is by combining your disciplines, interests, and observations in a way that’s unique to you and speaks to a truth you’ve identified about the world. Even if it challenges deeply held conventions in your craft or society. Go ahead, piss some people off. It will be good for them.

When Jordan Peele made the jump to directing horror films after completing the fifth successful season of his comedy series Key & Peele, people were shocked. At first glance, comedy and horror seem to exist on opposite sides of the spectrum. But there are more similarities for Peele once you get beneath the surface. Both appeal to outsiders. Both are a means of facing our fears. The only difference is in tone. Comedy is an attempt to laugh off our fears. While horror is an attempt to master our fears by looking straight at them.

But Peele was frustrated with horror films. They were too formulaic, predictable, and revealed their cards too early, leaving little room to challenge audiences as the story unfolded. Just as Peele studied sketch comedy, learned the rules, then pushed the limits, he took the same approach in horror to challenge the confines of the genre. He was determined to reengineer the whole thing to add more depth, make the genre more accessible, and tell better stories.

Peele’s roots in comedy helped him to become a master at observation and right-sizing risks. He pushed audiences to stretch alongside him, working to understand something from someone else’s point of view—the ultimate power of storytelling. Horror was a similar way to provoke. And adapting the genre to his approach allowed him to create something new.

Just as Bruce Lee learned the craft, techniques, and discipline of wing chun, then created something of his own to improve and bridge the divide in martial arts. Peele learned the rules and combined his own experiences in a way that allowed him to push the threshold of what was typical of horror films.

Advancing your craft

With your own experiences and observations, you can push the dial further than you think. You just have to trust your perspective and break the rules when they no longer serve what you’re attempting to create.

Whether art, business, film, music, science, or technology, there are techniques, approaches, and mental models—things we believe to be true—that we will look back on in ten years and laugh about. To be part of progress, you must learn to break the rules and challenge what’s accepted without question—especially what people disguise as “best practices.”

If you want to advance the conversation, you have to stretch beyond what’s comfortable. Challenge yourself to combine ideas in new ways or test a new approach. Apply it to your life. Apply it to your discipline. By synthesizing ideas and personal observations in your own way and giving the world a fresh take, you create work that more strongly resonates with you and your audience.

If you intend to go through life as a consumer, forget this lesson. But if you want to create and leave your mark on the world, you must find ways to advance your craft and the conversation—no matter how small your first steps might appear. This is how you transcend from an operator to a trailblazer, inspiring others to create and see the world in a new way.

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Sources:

1. Tao of Jeet Kune Do, Bruce Lee

2. Be Water, My Friend, Shannon Lee

3. The Life Philosophy of Bruce Lee, The Art of Manliness

4. How Bruce Lee Worked, Stuff You Should Know

The Outsider Advantage

“There’s no freedom quite like the freedom of being constantly underestimated.”

— Scott Lynch

At the turn of the 19th century, human flight continued to elude civilization. There were experiments, blueprints, and myths surrounding flight from Icarus to Leonardo da Vinci. But no one had figured out how to master human flight. During the late 1800s, this challenge consumed many of the era’s best scientists and engineers—Sir Hiram Maxim, Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison, Samuel Langley, and the Smithsonian Institution, to name a few. 

Meanwhile, Wilbur and Orville Wright ran a bicycle shop in Dayton, Ohio, designing, repairing, and selling bicycles. But they, too, had grown fascinated with the challenge of flight. 

In 1899, Wilbur wrote to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington requesting documents on the subject of human flight. The Smithsonian passed along a stack of pamphlets on aviation, and the brothers started studying. Later that summer, above their bicycle shop on West Third Street, they began building their first aircraft—a glider with double wings spanning five feet made of split bamboo and paper.

Unlimited resources don’t equal better results

No one took the Wright brothers seriously, at least not yet. They were just two entrepreneurs building bicycles and living in the backwaters of Ohio. All the innovation was happening on the East Coast and in major European cities like Paris and London, led by well-funded scientists and engineers. But despite the resource advantage and the money being thrown at the problem, success remained elusive for those pursuing flight.

Sir Hiram Maxim, the inventor of the machine gun, spent $100,000 on a giant, steam-powered flying machine, which turned out to be a spectacular failure, crashing immediately upon take off.

But Samuel Langley was the most notable frontrunner in the race to human flight. Langley was the head of the Smithsonian, an eminent astronomer, and one of the most well-respected scientists in the United States. He was years ahead of the Wright brothers, and his experiments were backed by government funding. Langley held a tremendous advantage in his access to resources—both in terms of capital and information.

But with nearly unlimited resources, the stakes were higher and the pressure greater for Langley. After years of secretive work, he revealed what he called an “aerodome”—a steam-powered flying machine with V-shaped wings that gave it the appearance of a “monstrous dragonfly.” 

The aerodrome cost $50,000 in public money—grants from the Smithsonian and the U.S. War Department. Langley, Graham Bell, and others contributed another $20,000 of their own money. But the device could only “fly” in calm weather where the wind wasn’t a factor, which was as practical as building a boat unable to navigate waves. 

When it came time for a public demonstration, the aerodome was loaded onto the roof of a houseboat in the Potomac River near Quantico, Virginia, before being launched into the sky by catapult. Almost immediately, the wings crumbled, and the airship spun backward and plunged into the Potomac just 20 feet from where it had been launched. Langley’s efforts had taken more than eight years and failed to produce any meaningful progress. 

Resourcefulness wins out

During this same time, the Wright brothers were relentless in their efforts. Wilbur and Orville ran the bicycle shop by day and worked each night on their investigations into flight. After identifying the ideal place to test their first glider in Kitty Hawk on the desolate Outer Banks of North Carolina with windy conditions and sand hills for safe landings, they began their experiments. The first full-sized glider they brought to Kitty Hawk had a wingspan of 18 feet and cost just $15. 

Wilbur and Orville would return to Kitty Hawk every fall for the next four years to run experiments and test new iterations. As competition took notice and patrons reached out to help back the Wright brothers financially, Wilbur and Orville politely refused. They kept the bicycle shop open to help pay for their experiments and bootstrap their exploration into flight. And during frigid midwest winters in Dayton when it was too cold for cycling, they sharpened ice skates at the shop for 15 cents each to generate additional income. 

In their early, self-funded experiments, Wilbur and Orville learned that many of the widely accepted calculations and tables relating to foundational concepts in aviation, like lift and drag, prepared by authorities were fundamentally wrong and couldn’t be trusted. To improve the accuracy of their calculations, the Wright brothers built a small wind tunnel upstairs in their bicycle shop—a wooden box roughly six feet long with a fan mounted at one end. Over the next few months, they tested 38 different wing surfaces at different angles and wind speeds. 

After dialing in their own calculations, by the fall of 1902, they had completed a third iteration of their glider. And in just two months in Kitty Hawk, the Wright brothers had completed a thousand glides and solved the last remaining control problems. With relentless focus, data-driven experimentation, and thoughtful iterations, they had built a machine that could fly, and in the process, honed the skills to pilot it. The next step would be to add a motor. And by the following winter, Wilbur would complete the first powered flight in human history, covering a quarter mile in 59 seconds. 

In contrast to Langley’s $70,000 failed effort, the Wright brother’s expenses over four years, including materials and travel, totaled less than $1,000—all paid for by the proceeds from their bicycle shop in Dayton. Their competitors, with seventy times the amount of resources, couldn’t keep pace.

Despite Wilbur and Orville both lacking formal education or influential connections and living outside of the intellectual centers of the world, they were the first to solve the challenge of controlled human flight. They were both driven by and dedicated to solving the problem. Not because they were supposed to. And not because of the prestige it would garner. But because it was an inspiring challenge that they both felt a connection to. 

Less to lose

The Wright brothers were outsiders. And as outsiders, they could think for themselves while competitors imitated each other’s devices and worked from flawed formulas. The Wright brothers faced less external pressure, which crippled even the best scientists, like Langley. And this freed them to experiment and find their own way. No one was expecting anything from them, and that was just fine by them. They had less to lose. Their competitors had reputations to protect. 

It’s true that in specific industries like politics, you must be an insider to enact real change. But for the rest of us building, leading, and creating something of our own, it’s not always the advantage we believe it to be. 

As an insider in your industry, your worldview begins to narrow. And most of your energy becomes directed toward preserving your ability to think for yourself and avoid getting sucked into what everyone else is thinking. And when you have access to unlimited resources, it restricts your creativity. You’re no longer forced to effectively prioritize or consider different vantage points that allow you to do more with less. You become entrenched in what everyone else is doing, and it’s difficult to see beyond that. 

Many times, the inside track with well-funded, resource-rich, established companies, teams, and figureheads, is where the least amount of work gets done. They grow too comfortable, lack focus, or take on initiatives for the wrong reasons, like ego or fear, resulting in a fragile, reactive approach. They’re playing not to lose, which is very different from the flexibility and boldness that you play with to win. That’s why new startups come along and disrupt big companies each day. They have less to lose.

Embracing the role of an outsider can work to your advantage. You face less pressure and fewer distractions. And this helps preserve both your ability to think for yourself and the energy you can dedicate to building. If you become too enmeshed in what everyone else is doing, it can be difficult to step back and return to first principles. 

The Wright brothers leveraged available knowledge, but they questioned and validated every assumption they came across. They focused on the problem. They focused on building. They focused on their own experiments. And as outsiders, they were provided an advantage in that they didn’t have to deal with the same level of obligations or distractions someone like Samuel Langley faced. They could operate with greater flexibility and were free to do the work. 

As an outsider, you face greater odds. But those odds act as a natural filter for work you don’t find all that meaningful. If you aren’t motivated by what you’re doing and lack a deeper connection to your work, you will get absolutely crushed. There’s no faking it. Whereas on the inside, you can float by without making hard decisions or determining if you’re doing it for the right reasons. 

Bootstrap your idea into reality

This was the difference between the Wright brothers and Langley. Flight was a quest the Wright brothers found personal meaning in. They weren’t motivated by fame, reputation, or external validation. The reward was the challenge and committing themselves to a cause they cared about. And just as importantly, they embraced their role as outsiders, bootstrapping the whole thing and avoiding the obligations associated with taking on outside capital. 

You don’t need to secure a record deal, an agent, or get into Y-Combinator to create a successful album, book, or company. Andy Weir self-published The Martian, which sold 35,000 copies in its first three months and later grossed over $630 million worldwide in its film adaptation. After getting rejected by every major label in town, Jay-Z started his own label—Roc-A-Fella Records—to release his first record, Reasonable Doubt, selling more than 420,000 units. Yvon Chouinard started what would grow into Patagonia after buying a used coal-fired forge from a local junkyard, teaching himself blacksmithing, and forging climbing gear for his friends. Patagonia didn’t take a dime of outside capital for its first 20 years and has sustained success over five decades, now generating well over $1 billion in annual revenue.

We live in an era where it’s easier than ever to bootstrap our own ideas and embrace the outside track. You can launch your own startup as a side hustle and access thousands of low-cost tools to run your business without diluting your ownership. You can record your own album and distribute it independently without handing over the rights to labels and publishers. And all of this can work to your advantage. 

When you avoid taking on external resources and unnecessary obligations, you simplify decision-making and preserve the integrity of what you’re trying to build. There’s less noise influencing your work. And it helps you to avoid getting caught up in false goals and virtue signaling.

Seek accomplishment in the work, not external validation

Far too many people conflate external validation with accomplishment. But raising a Series-A, signing a book deal, or getting accepted into an Ivy League school is not the accomplishment. The accomplishment is on the other side of the blood, sweat, and tears you must pour into your work. The accomplishment is bringing something of your own to life.

The Wright brothers were just a couple of midwesterners running a bicycle shop. What did they know about aviation? Not much at first, but they were driven to learn and build. One of the few locals in Kitty Hawk, John T. Daniels, remarked, “It wasn’t luck that made them fly; it was hard work and common sense; they put their whole heart and soul and all their energy into an idea and they had the faith.”

Embrace the outside track. And once you’ve gained traction, keep a healthy distance. It’s a gift when people are unsuspecting. You free yourself to focus on creating and gain an element of surprise that keeps the competition off guard. Besides, there’s nothing more motivating than when someone has counted you out. That’s right where you want them.

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Sources:

1. The Wright Brothers by David McCullough

2. Founders Podcast, #28: The Wright Brothers

3. Founders Podcast, #239: The Wright Brothers

4. Empire State of Mind by Zach O’Malley Greenburg

5. Let My People Go Surfing by Yvon Chouinard

Call Your Own Shots

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood…”

— Teddy Roosevelt

Jordan Peele, like so many other comedians, saw Saturday Night Live as the pinnacle of sketch comedy. By 2008, Peele had worked his way up the ranks through Boom Chicago, Second City, and Mad TV to hone his sketch and improv skills. Along the way, he earned a reputation for imitations. He could become anyone. 

Around this time, Senator Barack Obama was emerging as a leading candidate for the Presidency and SNL needed someone to play the part. Peele received a call from Seth Myers asking if he had an Obama impression. Peele worked on it for a week then flew out to New York to audition. This was his chance to reach the top after years of hard work.

Peele played it perfectly. SNL offered him the job. There was only one problem—he was still under contract at Mad TV. Peele figured he could negotiate his way out, but the producers at Mad TV wouldn’t budge. Despite his pleas, they refused to concede. He was required to finish out his contract. End of conversation. 

Peele was crushed. SNL was the dream he had worked so hard towards for his entire career. And just like that, with an offer in hand, it was ripped out from underneath him. What right did these network executives have to use his fate as a bargaining chip? Peele was forced to grapple with an uncertain path forward. 

In the weeks, months, and years that followed, Peele discovered a way to channel the anger and frustration from the experience. He realized that if he could become a producer, he would have more leverage and avoid trapping himself in a similar position in the future. 

Peele recognized that producers were the ones making the final decisions about art and comedy. But most of them were shit at it. They mindlessly followed what had worked in the past and were oblivious to what made good art or comedy. Peele was tired of everything having to pass through these gatekeepers to reach audiences. 

Seize creative control

In 2009, after a five-year run at Mad TV and 94 episodes, Peele’s contract finally expired. And he set out with full force to take creative control over his own comedy and content.

As Peele found his footing, he began to explore the idea of his own sketch show with Keegan-Michael Key, a fellow Mad TV alumnus. And the more they discussed the concept, the more they realized it was something they had to do. Key & Peele was born soon after. 

Over the course of thirteen weeks, Key and Peele created more than 250 sketches that showcased the breadth of their comedic skills. They would pare this down to 54 sketches for the first season. As their own executive producers, they could take bigger risks than they otherwise might have been able to. They were constantly assessing how far they could push because that’s what they believed audiences deserved.

The show would run for five seasons on Comedy Central. It is widely considered to be one of the best sketch series ever created. Key & Peele dialed into what they knew people were thinking but might not be saying, and brought it to life through comedy. The polished, bite-sized skits only increased their virality online. Skits like “Obama’s Anger Translator” and “Substitute Teacher” became staples in popular culture. But without Peele pursuing creative control, they would have never been made. 

When Peele was forced to let the SNL offer go, he could have thrown up his hands. He could have accepted that he was powerless against the weight of those who held creative control and made the executive decisions. But instead, he used this as motivation to seize creative control. To define his own work. To answer to himself.

Unveil the hidden risks

Despite what we might tell ourselves, there’s no real justification for taking a hands-off approach in our own lives. But we often do exactly this. We get comfortable operating as passengers in our own stories and console ourselves with empty anecdotes like ‘whatever happens, happens.’ The consequence is that we let mediocre leaders, peers, producers, and executives dictate our future. 

In our indifference, we allow inertia to dull the edges of our work and limit our trajectory.

Living—at least meaningfully—requires a hands-on approach. You are the only one who understands what brings you life, why that matters to you, and where you want to take your work. There are certainly things that exist beyond your control. But you damn well better pry back control of the things that are. 

You must move with conviction, direct your own life, and learn to circumvent the gatekeepers. When you subject yourself to the whims of a committee whose opinions you don’t respect, you end up compromising on too many critical aspects of your work.

There is an important difference between collaborators and gatekeepers. Gatekeepers are rent-seeking suits who justify their position through resource guarding. Collaborators are operators with skin in the game who want to help you wrestle back creative control. Collaborators pass the foxhole test.

The difference is in intention and risk tolerance. Gatekeepers aren’t looking to push things forward. They’re just trying to follow a playbook that prescribes success. Why take a risk on something new when you can make Batman for the 97th time? Never mind that it’s derivative or that in 50 years our grandkids are going to be convinced that we lacked any sort of original thought and we all had a superhero fetish to boot. 

It’s important to surround yourself with collaborators who push you and help bring your work to life. The work that’s true to you. The work that’s helping you to uncover what you believe about the world. Not a watered-down version. Collaborators will be there in the trenches helping you dig.

Create leverage

Similar to creative control, another way to think about this is by seizing the means of production. It gives you flexibility to set the tone. It creates an opportunity for you to go on the offensive, create momentum, and stop resistance in its tracks. 

By 210 B.C., Carthaginian general Hannibal had been wreaking havoc, fighting on the doorstep of Italy for sixteen years. The Roman general, Scipio Africanus grew tired of being baited into exhausting battles that they couldn’t win. Scipio then turned his attention to slowly capturing Hannibal’s means of production so he could better dictate the battles moving forward. 

Scipio’s first step was to take control of New Carthage in Spain—a regional capital where the Carthaginians stored vast amounts of wealth and supplies. Then he realized New Carthage depended on Carthage so he took the battle to modern-day Tunisia. This forced Hannibal and his army to return to their homeland and play defense for the first time in more than a decade. And finally, Scipio saw that Carthage depended on its fertile farmlands for material prosperity, so he struck the Bagradas Valley. This was a turning point in the war. Carthage sued for peace and they were all but eliminated as a threat to Rome. 

By controlling the means of production, Scipio was able to dictate his own terms. You always want to be able to set the tempo, rather than allowing yourself to be thrashed around, reacting to events happening around you. 

Maximize your upside

When you take creative control, you put yourself on the line. You assume the risk. But you also gain exposure to the upside. Both in terms of success and in what you’re learning.

You will learn far more creating your own art, training for your own race, or launching your own startup than you otherwise would optimizing the sign-up funnel at a behemoth tech company, mindlessly consuming sports, or performing sketches that have to be approved by a committee of risk-averse producers.

Far from being the thing that derailed Jordan Peele’s career, not being able to work things out at SNL allowed him to be more ambitious in his work. In five seasons at Key & Peele, he was able to hone his own writing and directing abilities which would prove invaluable later in his career. He was able to pursue more ideas, explore more worlds, and craft more characters than he would have been able to playing by someone else’s rules.

Peele leaned in, taking more creative control and risks when he could have retreated. In doing so, he created a far steeper trajectory in his own career. While it was impossible to know then how things might play out, he trusted himself and his intentions to move towards taking back creative control over his own ideas. And he acted upon that. This gave him more flexibility, room to maneuver, and eliminated dependencies that stood in the way of bringing his ideas to life. 

By taking creative control and calling our own shots, we put our ass on the line. But this demands its own level of respect. The credit belongs to the man in the arena.

When we shut the escape hatch and there’s no turning back, our commitment is what empowers us. It’s what emboldens us to face obstacles and gatekeepers head-on. In doing so, we create more opportunities to show up and take risks for what we believe in. And in those moments when we move unapologetically towards creating something that resonates with us, the universe has a tendency to answer the call.

Bet on yourself. Always.

The Art of Drawdown Periods

Inspiration is important. Your influences matter. But you also need time to process, reflect, and create your own connections before jumping into your next project. Whether that’s a book, startup, or scientific theory, the lesson holds true for artists, entrepreneurs, and scientists, alike.

Best-selling author, Ryan Holiday, refers to these as “drawdown periods.” In the months leading up to writing a new book, Holiday guards himself against new information with the potential to clutter this mind. Instead, he seeks a period of stillness where he’s able to distill information and settle his mind before jumping off and creating something new.

““For one of my books I gave myself a January 1 start date for the writing. Two months before, in November, I entered my drawdown period. No more reading or rereading. Just thinking. Long walks. Resting. Preparing.””

— Ryan Holiday

The danger of neglecting a drawdown period is failing to create a buffer where you’re able to discover and piece together your own thoughts on the subject. Instead, you’re just regurgitating the latest idea or concept you’ve heard, as if it’s your own. To be fair, this is human nature — we’re highly impressionable, social beings.

But creating a little more distance is a good thing. It provides additional perspective that you’re able to bring back to your work. Without this, you’re just facing an onslaught of information and distraction which can be difficult to make sense of.

Is your idea worth pursuing?

Above everything else, drawdown periods help inform whether or not an idea’s worth pursuing. The original source of “drawdown periods” — where Holiday borrowed the concept from — was military strategist, John Boyd. After he encountered a breakthrough or exciting new idea, he would spend weeks examining it, assessing its originality, and stress-testing it for problems. If it survived this period, he knew it was worth investing in.

The greater the endeavor, the more vital a drawdown period becomes. It’s important to act when inspiration strikes as it relates to the little things — an article, a small experiment, a new tactic. But the mountains — new books, startups, theories — are worth reflecting on before jumping in.

This helps create a natural filter for the things you’re not completely invested in. If the idea still resonates with you tomorrow, next week, next month, you might be on to something.

Tapering before the race

Far from killing inspiration, drawdown periods promote creativity. They allow you to find your voice and the guiding principle behind your next project. Without this, it’s impossible to sort through what’s your own.

Drawdown periods are the calm before the storm. If you set off scrambling without first setting your feet, you’re putting yourself behind from the start. While everyone loses their way at some point, it’s important to have a sense of your guiding principle — this initial footing — that you can return to along the way. And the best way to establish an early version of your guiding principle is by creating room to reflect before taking the leap.

Creative work is difficult enough, as is. Don’t make it more difficult by cluttering your mind at the start. Allow yourself time to breathe before setting off on your next pursuit.

It’s similar to tapering before a race. If you’re rested, you’ll be in better condition to handle the strenuous demands of the real race and guard yourself against burnout. In endurance sports, two days before a race, your metabolic fitness level is what it will be for the upcoming race. No matter how hard you train during those final 48 hours, you won’t see any benefits to your endurance in time for the race. Rest matters.

The value of tuning out

In 1902, Albert Einstein took a job at the Swiss patent office. The years he spent there could be considered the ultimate drawdown period. It was challenging enough to keep his mind engaged, but not enough to distract him from his more important focus on comprehending and redefining physics.

Three years later, Einstein published his paper, “On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies,” which outlines the special theory of relativity. Its contributions to the field of physics were profound. But one of the most astonishing things about the paper was that it had exactly zero footnotes or citations. It was like he reached the conclusions through years of pure thought, without listening to outside opinion.

While Einstein is an extreme example and a profound abstract thinker, the underlying lesson holds true. For originality and creativity, sometimes you need to allow yourself to tune out.

““If you’re constantly exposed to other people’s ideas, it can be tough to think up your own.” ”

— Jake Knapp + John Zeratsky

Deliberate or impulsive?

Drawdown periods aren’t an excuse to avoid getting started. You’re never going to be as prepared as you might like. Drawdown periods are more about giving yourself a moment of calm before the grind of creating something from nothing. New startups, books, and theories can take years, if not decades, to develop.

The difference between great artists, entrepreneurs, and scientists is the difference between drawdown periods and procrastination. Drawdown periods are deliberate. Procrastination is impulsive.

At a certain point, it helps to limit exposure and turn things back to yourself. Allow yourself to mull ideas, forge connections on your own terms, and see what comes out of it. It’s impossible to find your own voice if you’re bombarding yourself with other people’s ideas without giving yourself time to breathe.

Drawdown periods offer a temporary refrain when you’re able to step back and see the terrain. This allows you a chance to appreciate the interconnected whole and create connections or bridge ideas that you might have otherwise missed. The more perspective you can build, the better you’ll be for it. And the same goes for your craft.

As a smart creative, drawdown periods are essential. Give yourself time to prepare, rest, and reflect before your next endeavor. You’ll need every ounce of energy you have if you want to get your thinking clean and bring the best version of an idea to life.

Inverting the Distraction of Social Media

There are plenty of articles out there that rail against social media. The trouble is not that they’re inaccurate–most hold valid points. It’s that they’re often a laundry list of complaints without any real takeaways, other than “social media sucks” or “regulate Facebook.” At best, you get a call for moderation. 

A more effective approach is to invert the problem. How does the ever-present distraction that is social media present an advantage for you?

Most people aren’t going to dedicate their time to reading, writing, creating, training, or reflecting. Each of these are difficult things to do. It’s much easier to turn to Snapchat or Instagram as a crutch to waste away the hours. 

If you train yourself to do the difficult work that others avoid and ignore the distractions that others can’t resist, you put yourself years ahead. 

But this requires mental toughness and an ability to suffer. Most people panic at the first sign of discomfort. You’re sacrificing immediate for delayed gratification. If you’re able to master this impulse and embrace discomfort, you provide yourself more opportunities for growth. 

“We distinguished the excellent man from the common man by saying that the former is one who makes great demands on himself, and the latter the one who makes no demands on himself…”

— José Ortega y Gasset

In the age of distraction, there’s no greater differentiator than establishing yourself as a stalwart of focus and creativity. 

This comes from allowing yourself to sit with something, even if it means getting stuck. Nail Gaiman, author, uses a similar technique when he sits down to write. He gives himself permission to either write or do nothing. But everything else is off the table. Sooner or later, staring off into the distance gets boring and the only alternative is to write. 

In many ways, distractions are a training ground. Social media is just the latest culprit. If you’re able to resist the easy thing within reach and focus instead on the more challenging task, that translates across every aspect of your life. 

“Most people think they can wait around for the big moments to turn it on. But if you don’t cultivate ‘turning it on’ as a way of life in the little moments – and there are hundreds of times more little moments than big – then there’s no chance in the big moments.”

— Josh Waitzkin

You can either complain about the distraction that is social media or you can use that energy to turn in to your advantage. And it’s a tremendous advantage for those able to ignore the noise and create more. 

Are you going to sit down and do the work? Or are you going to be a sucker for another quick hit of empty recognition that comes from someone mindlessly scrolling through their feed and tapping on your status? 

Let other people wander towards distraction. Social media should be just another test to hone your focus and practice tuning out the noise. 

The more time you spend creating, the more fulfilled you are going to be. History belongs to those able to overcome the incessant distractions of their time. 

Why the Worst Product Managers Expect the Best

With each product I’ve built, things rarely come together exactly as planned. But it’s not the inconveniences, technical challenges, or misguided people that are the problem. It’s that we ever allow them to catch us off guard in the first place.

Anyone can operate under ideal conditions. But ideal conditions are the exception, not the rule. Eighty percent of your time building product will take place in a maelstrom of ambiguity and obstacles.

It’s naive to expect that the world should bend to your favor and promote ideal conditions. Most reasonable people acknowledge this. But when it comes down to it, many of us cling to expectations that our work should progress without pushback and our lives should follow a neatly charted map. We forget how much of life is negotiating egos and hidden variables along the way. 

The best teams embrace imperfections beyond their control and create great products anyway.

The worst teams self-destruct because they’re too busy obsessing over inconveniences. 

It’s easy to pick out the product teams who struggle with this. Each challenge appears to catch them off guard, demoralizing the team and throwing people into a state of anger or despair. This type of reaction points to two things: inexperience and fragility.

Improvement comes from experience and perspective–you’re prepared to face a wider range of potential scenarios. In turn, this allows you to develop a deeper well of resilience and resourcefulness.

Creativity and resilience

At age 23, I started working for a healthcare startup, building out a web-based patient portal. Each setback caught me off guard because I expected things to just work–a laughable statement for anyone who has worked in technology for more than a week. When I went on-site for the launch with our first big client, I was unable to anticipate the ways I was about to get torched. 

There were technical challenges inherent to a complex healthcare organization and integrations with its existing software that we had to sort through. But the technical challenges were only half of it. The true test was handling stakeholders–internal and external–as well as the people who create noise and thrive on passive-aggressive emails.

Anyone who has worked in product is familiar with these challenges. There’s nothing unique about them. But I struggled to adapt because my expectations were off base. I lacked perspective. I was focused on perfection in our product and people pleasing–both impossible tasks–rather than creativity and resilience. 

The best product managers are able to cycle through dozens of permutations and anticipate certain situations through dimensional thinking. But no matter how good you are, at some point you’ll get hit by something you didn’t see coming. Whether the feature you’ve been working on breaks or a “senior leader” steps in and changes the rules at the last minute, you will encounter situations that test your limits. 

Your job isn’t to prevent these mistakes or eliminate every obstacle. Rather it’s to develop the ability to continue moving forward when the inevitable occurs. Leading product requires that you establish an unwavering sense of perspective and imbue this quality in your team. Then, and only then, can you build the resilience and resourcefulness to adapt, imagine creative solutions, and bring them to life. 

Resilient teams who cause a few more quality issues will always beat out fragile teams who are only able to operate under perfect conditions. The difference is self-awareness and being able to step back to put things in perspective. This means assuming responsibility instead of feeling sorry for yourself because something you built didn’t work or someone criticized you. 

This is not to say that you shouldn’t focus on promoting favorable conditions. You can’t create a complete shit storm for yourself and hope to come out better for it. But you should also understand that you’re never going to get ideal conditions. There are going to be things beyond your control. And that’s what keeps life interesting–the challenges and obstacles you have to learn how to overcome along the way.

Each team meeting, one-on-one, and retrospective is an opportunity to develop these qualities in your team. By challenging each other to maintain perspective and reflect on experiences, you can turn things back to what’s within your control–your attitude, the effort you put into your work, and the guiding principle that propels you forward.

Opportunities for reflection

In my experience, few things are more valuable to the morale and resilience of a team than holding retrospectives every few weeks. These are best done with your immediate team (keep things small so everyone can have their voice heard) in a low-stress environment, outside of work. There are multiple formats, but each person should have a chance to discuss what’s gone well and what hasn’t. 

This provides a valuable outlet for everyone to air their frustrations, without judgment or repercussions, and remind each other of recent accomplishments. It also allows the team to come together and consider how you might frame challenges in a more productive light and course correct the things within your control.

Retrospectives are just one outlet to discuss experiences and rediscover perspective. And with the right perspective, you can begin building the resilience to navigate the conflict and uncertainty inherent to challenging work. 

Creating more opportunities for reflection is the best way to harness experience and build perspective. It’s the first step towards realizing that imperfect conditions are where the majority of life takes place. Knowing this, you’ll be able to lead better teams, build better products, and live a better life. 

Expect challenges. Expect unknowns. Expect ego. When you set your expectations accordingly, you’ll waste less time consumed by the things that have happened to you. 

Anyone can operate under ideal conditions. But the best product teams don’t sit around waiting for the stars to align. Instead, they embrace the imperfections inherent to life, create their own momentum, and make things happen for them. To steal a line from Charles Bukowski, “What matters most is how well you walk through the fire.”

*This article was originally featured on Mind the Product.

The 5 Best Books to Help You Create More

Perennial Seller – Ryan Holiday

A useful starting place to understand the entire creative journey–from sitting down to create, through positioning, marketing, and building a platform. Holiday pulls dozens of examples from creative minds throughout history to uncover tactics and best practices. But the underlying strategy consistent throughout the book can be summed up as playing the long game. If you want to create something of lasting value, there are no shortcuts or paths to immediate gratification. Dedicate yourself to your creative process and put in the work.

“To create something is a daring, beautiful act. The architect, the author, the artist–are all building something where nothing was before.”

— Ryan Holiday

Grit – Angela Duckworth

In any creative endeavor, you’ll need both direction and determination–what Duckworth defines as “grit”– if you want to make meaningful progress. The book emphasizes the importance of deliberate practice, purpose, and stamina over intensity. The best thing about Duckworth’s writing is that she makes it real. It’s not about a magical experience that leads you to your passion, purpose, or life’s work. Instead, this comes through a discovery period–often messy, serendipitous, and inefficient–followed by years of refinement, and a lifetime of deepening.

“Passion for your work is a little bit discovery, followed by a lot of development, and then a lifetime of deepening.”

— Angela Duckworth

Atomic Habits – James Clear

Once you have a sense of direction, you need to build the creative habits to put things into action. The concept behind Atomic Habits is that by stacking tiny habits over time you can achieve compounding, remarkable results. Your creative results, as Clear suggests, are the lagging measure of your habits. He offers great insight into nonlinear growth (breakthrough moments), identity, discipline, and environmental design. The importance of building better systems is hard to overvalue. There’s room for everyone to improve in this capacity, and if nothing else it’s a refreshing reminder: “Does this behavior help me become the type of person I wish to be? Does this habit cast a vote for or against my desired identity?"

“It is only by making the fundamentals in life easier that you can create the mental space needed for free thinking and creativity.”

— James Clear

Creativity, Inc. – Ed Catmull

One of the best modern examples of the impact that comes from harnessing creativity and building a culture where the creative process can thrive. Catmull discusses the evolution of Pixar Animation, including the philosophies and strategies that have established them as creative force. Most notably, the team at Pixar embraces the years of ambiguity inherent to the creative process as a story evolves into its own. Instead of becoming attached to a single storyline or character, they seek out a deep truth at the core of the film–the guiding principle–and craft the story around that. Catmull also emphasizes the role of leadership in cultivating creativity. It starts with loosening your grip, accepting risk, trusting your people, and giving them space to do what they do best.

“There is a sweet spot between the known and the unknown where originality happens; the key is to be able to linger there without panicking.””

— Ed Catmull

Leonardo da Vinci – Walter Isaacson

Throughout history there have been more profound, practical thinkers than Leonardo. But there’s never been anyone as creative as he was across so many different fields–art, science, engineering, technology, the humanities. If you’re hoping to improve your own creativity, you can do worse than studying the life and work of the person who became history’s archetype of the Renaissance Man. The depth of his curiosity and imagination are something to behold. What makes Leonardo such a powerful influence is that he was relatable and not some distant, untouchable figure. His creative genius was self-made, built from personal experience, experiments, and dedication to his craft.

“Be open to mystery. Not everything needs sharp lines.”

— Walter Isaacson

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And One More…

If five books isn’t enough, check out Mastery by Robert Greene. It’s a comprehensive guide to living a creative life, and one of my favorites. Greene starts with the essentials–discovering your art and immersing yourself in the mindset of an apprentice–and tracks the journey through building creative strategies and, ultimately, mastery.

9 Tactics to Help You Create More, Consume Less

When it comes to remarkable leaders, artists, scientists, and entrepreneurs, each individual has their own set of principles. But there is one underlying strategy that remains constant, revealing itself in different shades across each person–creating more and consuming less.

It’s through the work you put out into the world and the way you live your life that you build a sense of meaning. Smart creatives understand this in a deep way. By creating more, you claim a larger part of yourself.

Strategies like this help build energy, establish your identity, and inform the tactics you put in place. While it takes shape in different mediums, the overall strategy is to create more and consume less. It’s the mental framework which informs smaller decisions throughout the day.

Tactics are the individual pieces that comprise the larger whole. They differ in that they require an initial investment up front. It’s what you dedicate time and energy to on a daily basis to reinforce your strategy.

Author and habit expert, James Clear, explains habits as the individual votes you cast each day for a certain identity. The same concept applies here. Tactics are the individual votes you cast each day for a certain strategy. If your strategy is to create more and consume less, you need tactics to help encourage both.

1) Make it difficult to do the easy thing (consuming)

Adding resistance can be a powerful tactic. You want to make it harder to mindlessly consume. If you struggle with Netflix, unplug the television or sign out of your account after each use. If you struggle with social media, change your passwords at the start of each week and sign out of your accounts so you can’t easily access them.

It’s amazing how impactful it can be to move things out of plain sight. Whatever’s undermining your creative energy, add more resistance so you can redirect that towards something you find greater meaning in.

2) Make it easier to do the difficult thing (creating)

This is about environment design. Building something from nothing is difficult enough as is, don’t make it any harder on yourself. Prioritize time and space for your craft to reach a deeper level of focus and creativity.

For years, my place for creativity at home–where I would sit down to write–was a couch that faced the television in my living room. And to further compound the problem, I wasn’t attempting this during quieter hours of the day. It was while people were coming and going, stopping to watch Netflix, sitting down for a meal. There were incessant distractions.

But this past year, I carved out physical space dedicated to writing. I converted one of our bedrooms to a writing studio/library and it’s made a significant difference. I also started writing first thing in the morning while my mind is fresh and I have two quiet hours before work.

Dedicating time and space where you can focus without interruption on your craft will allow you to grow exponentially faster. It’s the first step towards taking yourself and your art seriously.

Make it easier to do the right thing. This doesn’t mean sitting around waiting for ideal conditions or until you’re completely prepared, otherwise you’ll be waiting forever. It means setting yourself up for success through the things you can control in your immediate environment.

3) Pair positive reinforcements

Four years ago, when I first started taking writing seriously, I paired my writing sessions with my favorite coffee shop in Nashville. I walked over in the evenings after work to sit down and write. It’s something I looked forward to every day because of the atmosphere, the music I would listen to and, of course, the caffeine. This reinforcement helped me rediscover writing as a creative outlet.

Now I automatically associate these cues with my creative process. Coffee, coffee shops, and ambient music are shortcuts that jump me into a state of relaxed concentration that I need to do my best writing.

4) Allow yourself to get stuck

At the first sign of boredom or discomfort, most of us instinctively search for distractions and outlets for immediate gratification. And we do so without even recognizing it.

Until recently, the moment I slowed down or felt stuck in my own writing, I coped by jumping between tabs in Chrome–checking email, looking up restaurants for dinner, scrolling through Twitter.

The secret is to allow yourself to get stuck and sit with something. Once I gave myself permission to sit there without looking away, my resilience and creativity improved immediately.

Momentum is easier to come by when you don’t look away at the first challenging moment. Bouncing between distractions won’t result in some magical insight. Give yourself permission to get stuck.

“Too many people believe that everything must be pleasurable in life, which makes them constantly search for distractions and short-circuits the learning process. The pain is a kind of challenge your mind presents–will you learn how to focus and move past the boredom, or like a child will you succumb to the need for immediate pleasure and distraction.”

— Robert Greene

For writers: Tools aren’t everything but they can be helpful. I’ve found Ulysses to be one of the best investments I’ve made ($5/month). It helps facilitate each of these first four tactics. Its typewriter mode is fullscreen which makes it easier to focus, harder to jump between distractions (web, email, text messages), and the daily goals feature helps create a strong positive reinforcement.

5) Create a distraction-free phone

For most of us, myself included, our phones are our number one source of distraction. Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky outline the tactic that is a distraction-free phone in their book Focus. It’s one of the most influential tactics I’ve found in the past year. There are three main components:

1. Delete infinity-pools apps (social media) from your phone

2. Delete email accounts from your phone

3. Delete/disable the web browser on your phone

These might sound extreme, but let me explain. Last year I took step one, deleting infinity-pools apps (sources of never-ending streams of content). But the energy I wasted on social media was replaced by checking email, random websites, and Googling everything that crossed my mind.

It was only after I took steps two and three, despite my initial reservations, that I saw a measurable difference in my focus and creativity. There’s now far less clutter and distraction in my day-to-day. As a result, the clarity of my thoughts has improved and I have more opportunities to create.

I recognize this might strike terror in you. But test it out for a week and see how it goes. I no longer reach for my phone as a crutch in moments of boredom. And it taught me how many meaningless things cross my mind and how few emails (zero) require an immediate response.

6) Keep a journal instead

If you cut the time spent on your phone in half and replaced that with journaling, you’d improve your balance between creating and consuming within a matter of days. I leave a journal sitting on the table of whichever room I’m in at home. I jot down ideas as they come to me, intentions in the morning, reflections in the evening, beginnings of articles, and whatever else captures my curiosity.

The act of writing on paper allows you to explore concepts and draw connections in ways that you can’t on a screen. Your ideas take on a different dimension. Not to mention the fact that it eliminates the threat of distractions you face on a phone, tablet, or computer.

But the biggest advantage of journaling is that it helps build awareness. By reflecting, you gain insight into your own behaviors and tendencies, rather than wandering through life on autopilot. If you want to create more and consume less, you have to start by recognizing what you’re doing well and where there’s room to improve.

7) Use art as inspiration

This is not to say that you shouldn’t appreciate other people’s work. But you should use it as inspiration to create something of your own. Actively engage in the things you’re watching, reading, listening to, and consuming. Try to engage, form connections, and draw insights of your own. (Check out my book notes on 70+ titles for an example of how I approach this while reading.)

Use books, films, documentaries, paintings, research, and keynotes as inspiration to create more. If you’re a writer, weave one of the connections you made into your next article. If you’re an entrepreneur, adapt one of the stories to your current project and share it with your team to build stronger engagement.

The goal is to create an active mental landscape that’s alive with hundreds of connections. It directly benefits your creativity and craft when you’re able to combine ideas across disciplines in new and interesting ways.

8) Start small

Don’t go off the deep end and commit to twelve hours of creating each day. You’ll burn yourself out before you ever get started and make it difficult to recover. Instead, begin from a more sustainable place.

If you want to write more music, start with fifteen minutes each day then build from there. That’s how you create momentum. Develop habits that are sustainable and allow them to grow steadily over time.

Remind yourself that growth is nonlinear. Don’t expect immediate results. People tend to overestimate what they can accomplish in the short-term and underestimate what they can accomplish over the course of years. The power of small, calculated decisions and tactics grows exponentially over time. Start small and let compound interest run its course.

9) Find a medium that resonates with you

While every remarkable mind shares some sense of this strategy to create more and consume less, the medium varies. For J.K. Rowling it’s writing, Jay-Z it’s music, Scott Belsky it’s design and technology, Alexander von Humboldt it was exploration and science, Leonardo da Vinci it was art and engineering.

If you need a better starting place, consider the medium that resonates with you. Robert Greene, author of The Laws of Human Nature, suggests reflecting on three areas to help with this:

1. Inclinations in your earliest years–moments of fascination with certain subject, objects, or activities.

2. Moments when certain tasks or activities felt natural to you.

3. Particular forms of intelligence your brain is wired for.

The key is determining what’s meaningful to you and not absorbing what’s important to someone else as your own. Otherwise, you’ll miss the mark.

This is perhaps the most difficult skill of all–sorting through the noise and determining your own sense of authenticity. This requires years of exploration and reflection to determine for yourself. But it’s the only way to sustain a creative mindset and find meaning in your work.

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As a rule of thumb, it’s better to lean towards the mentality of a strategist than a tactician. Those who have the patience to expand their perspective of time and the endurance to play the long game put themselves at a significant advantage. There are multiple paths and hundreds of tactics you can use you reach the end goal.

These tactics are meant to help you find your own starting place. Use them to create momentum and discover what works best for you. Experiment and remain flexible. There’s no correct path or proper sequence of decisions. What matters is that the overall strategy to create more and consume less is held in constant focus.

The Philosophy of Remarkable Minds

Each of us has the capacity to face difficult work. In many ways, this defines life. The struggle to create something of our own is where we find meaning.

Our modern era of comfort and convenience can be a double-edged sword. It’s allowed us to eliminate the daily struggle for survival and afforded us the privilege of having this discussion. But when taken to an extreme, it leads to a deep anxiety and restlessness. Emptiness can be a fiercer foe than hardship.

“Humans don’t mind hardship, in fact they thrive on it; what they mind is not feeling necessary.”

— Sebastian Junger

It’s easy to sit by as a passive consumer and allow someone else to assume the risk. On a surface level, it might even appear that you’re reaping all the benefits. But if you fail to establish a creative outlet where you can build something of your own, you sacrifice your primary source of meaning along with it.

It’s through the work you put out into the world and the way you live that you instill your life with a sense of meaning. By creating more and consuming less you claim a larger part of yourself.

Those who have lived remarkable lives hold this philosophy in constant focus.

Into the Venezuelan Jungle

When Alexander von Humboldt was born in 1769 to a family of wealthy Prussian aristocrats, by all standards of the day, he had it made. His father was an army officer and advisor to King Friedrich Wilhelm II, and his mother was the daughter of a rich manufacturer. If he wanted a comfortable existence, all he had to do was sit back and stay the course.

But despite these advantages, he was anxious and unhappy for most of his early years. His adventurous spirit was never satisfied by the confines of a classroom or the promise of a lucrative career as a civil servant. His dream was to explore the natural world.

As a child, Humboldt was fascinated with the journals of Captain James Cook and his accounts of distant countries and cultures. Humboldt wandered the Berlin countryside to recreate adventures of his own, stuffing his pockets full of plants, rocks, and insects, earning the nickname ‘the little apothecary.’

But after his father died at the age of nine, his financial dependence on his emotionally distant mother allowed her to dictate much of the early, unfulfilling course of his life. Despite his objections, she demanded that he work his way up the ranks of the Prussian administration.

Humboldt found creative ways to channel his deep interest in science, geology, and languages at different universities and academies along the way. He poured over the work of various artists, botanists, explorers, and thinkers. And while each provided inspiration, it was not enough to fill the void he faced for the first twenty-seven years of his life.

Humboldt was torn between the expectations of his family and his insatiable desire to set sail, experience the world firsthand, and contribute something of his own to the scientific community. He lacked an outlet to discover and create in a way that resonated with him. Without this, an emptiness continued to build.

It was only after his mother’s death in 1796 that he felt in control of his own destiny. Longing to escape his tiny corner of the world, he began planning a voyage to South America.

At age thirty, Humboldt set off on the expedition which altered the course of his life. He would explore treacherous landscapes that no scientist had set foot in before. The driving force was his desire to piecing together a more cohesive understanding of the natural world. Most scientists of his day were focused on isolated disciplines. Humboldt was interested in bridging the divide and the interconnected whole.

After arriving in Venezuela, Humboldt trekked for two months across the tropical grasslands of Los Llanos, facing temperatures near 120 degrees Fahrenheit. He followed this with seventy-five days of grueling river travel down the Orinoco, covering 1400 miles to reach the Casiquiare canal–a natural tributary between the Orinoco and Amazon rivers. Along the way, he faced torrential rains, incessant mosquitos, the occasional jaguar, and bouts with fevers and dysentery.

This would seem disheartening to most, but Humboldt came alive with boundless energy and enthusiasm during these explorations. No matter the conditions, he insisted on measuring the height of mountains, determining longitude and latitude, taking temperatures of the air and water, making astronomical observations, collecting new species of plants, and documenting it all with detailed notes. Each new environment brought him closer to understanding how the natural world fit together.

The pinnacle of his experience in South America came during a 2,500-mile journey from Cartagena to Lima to explore the Andean Mountains. During this trip, he attempted to summit Chimborazo, an inactive volcano standing at 21,000 feet.

At 15,600 feet, the porters refused to go on. But Humboldt continued his ascent, fighting through freezing conditions, deep fields of snow, and altitude sickness. Without fail, every few hundred feet he stopped and fumbled with freezing hands to set up his instruments to measure temperature, humidity, altitude, and boiling points. He reached 19,286 feet–a world record at the time–before he was forced to turn around due to impassable conditions.

This experience inspired Humboldt to sketch ‘Naturgemälde,’ a depiction of Chimborazo’s cross sections with the distribution of vegetation, temperature, humidity, and atmospheric pressure according to altitude. Humboldt showed for the first time that nature was a global force with corresponding climate zones across continents. And he presented it in an unprecedented infographic style, allowing those without a scientific background to understand the concept.

Naturgemälde – Alexander von Humboldt’s first depiction of nature as an interconnected whole

Upon his return to Europe, Humboldt’s exploration of South America inspired him to write thousands of letters, essays, publications, and lectures. By making connections and framing nature as a unified whole, his work revolutionized the way we view the natural world. As an interesting aside, he was also the first to observe and describe human-induced climate change.

Humboldt inspired generations of scientists and writers including Charles Darwin, Henry David Thoreau, and John Muir. But his greatest contribution was making science more accessible and exciting to a broader audience.

In Berlin, his series of free lectures packed music and university halls with royal family, students, servants, women, and children. He took his audience on a journey that ignited their imagination–combining exact observation with painterly descriptions. He brought distant landscapes to life through poetry, geology, and astronomy, bridging the divide between art and science.

Humboldt continued exploration into his sixties with a 10,000 mile, six-month journey through Russia. He was invigorated by each expedition, showing the same youthful energy and endurance that he had thirty years earlier. He shared his learnings in publications and letters up until his final moments when he died in 1859 at the age of eighty-nine.

The Struggle to Create

Humboldt could have settled into his early existence, lived a comfortable life, and allowed others to assume the risk in their own research and exploration. But this shallow life wasn’t enough for him. Instead, he set out with an insatiable curiosity to better understand the natural world and contribute what he learned along the way.

His adventures were his outlet for creativity, discovery, and meaning. There’s nothing easy about a 2,500-mile trek through the Andes. But the struggle to study and create something that resonated with him at a deeper level brought him to life. Without this, he would have never found his own sense of authenticity and fulfillment.

Creativity is about finding something worth struggling for.

We live in a unique time. Most of us, like Humboldt, could coast through life without facing any significant hardship if we so chose. That’s a wonderful thing. But it collapses into its opposite when we allow our entire lives to be dictated by comfort and immediate gratification. We must not forget the importance of meaning, which is found through the struggle to create something of our own.

Spending the evening watching four episodes of your favorite show on Netflix or scrolling through Instagram might be the path of least resistance, but it’s mostly empty. There’s little opportunity to create meaning of your own. More often than not it’s a distraction that pulls you away from the things that actually matter.

Your unique identifiers are the work you put out into the world and the way you live your life. These are what add depth to your voice. Not the things you consume–fashion, film, food, music, research, sports, technology.

This is not to say that you shouldn’t appreciate other people’s original work. But you should use it as inspiration. It should serve as a catalyst for you to create more and find alignment in your own sense of authenticity. It’s the height of selfishness to expect other people to create meaningful work for your personal benefit without contributing anything of your own.

Creating begins with making yourself an essential part of the process. Not standing by as a passive consumer and allowing someone else to take the risk.

But don’t let anyone fool you, creating is challenging, uncomfortable, and a slow grind. There’s no way around it. That’s why most people fail to sustain the habit. You have to trust your capacity to suffer. But it’s where all the upside is found.

Endurance, Imagination, and Depth

When you prioritize creating something of your own, you give yourself more opportunities for peak experiences and claim a larger part of yourself–just as Humboldt did at the age of twenty-seven when he shifted the course of his life. This is infinitely more satisfying than the temporary highs of a consumer.

By creating more and consuming less, you add an unusual depth to your voice that draws people in. Your creative outlet is where you are able to channel the questions and struggles you’ve faced into something that offers profound insight. And that’s what life is all about.

Whether you forgo a life of privilege to trek through the Venezuelan jungle or you set aside Instagram so you can focus on your art, science, startup, or relationship with the person right in front of you, what matters is that you provide yourself an opportunity to create.

Those who make a measurable difference in the world are inspired to contribute something of their own. Instead of taking the easy route–opting for comfort and immediate gratification–they push themselves further into the unknown.

Human nature has given us remarkable endurance to face difficult work and the imagination to build something from nothing. It’s through this struggle to create that we instill our lives with a sense of meaning.

To find your sense of authenticity and fulfillment, you must fight to create more.

*If you want to learn more about Alexander von Humboldt, check out The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt’s New World by Andrea Wulf. It’s a tremendous read and the source of many details in this article.