I’m Back: Stop Stalling, Create Stuff, and Set Deadlines

I was just listening to Ira Glass discuss creativity and making stuff in this gem of a video.

The first couple years you’re making stuff, what you’re making isn’t that great. It’s trying to be good — it has ambition to be good… But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. Your taste is good enough that you can tell that what you’re making is a disappointment to you… A lot of people never get past that phase. A lot of people at that point — they quit. And the thing I would say to you, with all of my heart, is that most everybody I know who does interesting, creative work, they went through years of this. They knew what they were making fell short. Everybody goes through that. You gotta know it’s normal.

He goes on to talk about the most important thing you can do.

A Tribute to Scott Dinsmore and His Legacy

“The fastest way to do the things you think you can’t do is to hang out with people already doing them.” Scott Dinsmore

Scott owned the room. We were at a bar in Portland, Oregon, for the Live Your Legend Meetup prior to WDS 2014. Hundreds of people in the room, and Scott walked around with his beautiful wife entertaining, meticulously connecting people to one another, introducing everyone. He was having a blast, smiling, and when he got up to give a speech about how amazed he was that this community existed in this way, and how LYL local groups around the world had converged, and how proud that made him, I was in tears.