Creative Calling (book)

✒️ Note-Making

Clarify

🔈 Summary of main ideas

1. We all have the creative spark - We are all born creative, capable of being creative, and have a deeper calling we should listen to. It is what will bring us joy and fulfillment
2. Be you, no one else - In terms of meaning and success, there's no chance if you just try to blend in, or copy someone else. You have to stand out, which requires full authenticity, to find your unique take on things
3. Start small, start today - The only way to be creative is to do creative things. Don't take on grandiose goals, strive for small consistent acts of creation. One paragraph, one sketch. Doing is the best and only way to learn and grow.
4. Failure is natural part of the process - There's no such thing as overnight success. It is a cumulation of years of learning, of hard working, and many failures. To overcome failures, you need to face them as much as possible. stack rejection letters. Each will push you higher.
5. Give in order to receive - You can't get recognition simply by posting your work. To be seen, you first have to join where they are. To participate, to share, to give, to provide value. Only then you will get noticed, which is the first step of developing your own community which will be your creative base.

Relate

⛓ by following this method, what will happen? What is the goal of this book? I will find the courage to pursue my creative calling, to get the ball rolling, to improve and share my unique skill with the world.

Act

📋What should I do to achieve the goals set out by this book?

1. Declare your identity – proudly state what you are (e.g., “I am a photographer”) to solidify your role and overcome the fear of rejection.
2. Practice micro-sessions – prioritize consistency over duration by writing a single paragraph or taking one photo daily, rather than waiting for large blocks of time.
3. Use motivational scheduling – identify your peak hours for creative energy and protect that time for your most important work on your calendar.
4. Prioritize creating over consuming – actively replace time spent on social media, news, and email with dedicated practice hours to avoid the "busyness" trap.
5. Execute with Minimum Viable Products (MVPs) – set the smallest, most realistic goal possible for every session, rather than aiming for perfection on the first attempt.
6. Analyze and imitate experts – distill the "winning formula" used by successful peers in your field, then test and repeat those methods to hone your craft.
7. Seek rejection – actively share your work and collect as many rejections as possible to desensitize yourself and speed up your growth.
8. Separate actions from identity – maintain cognitive distance between yourself and your art so that feedback on your output helps you grow rather than hurting your self-worth.
9. Engage with communities – build an audience by actively participating in your craft's community through sharing, commenting, and collaborating rather than just broadcasting work.
10. Push through the plateau – commit to making consistently even when you discover your skills lag behind the experts, as action is the only cure for the growth rut.

Critique

🧩 relevant research, metaphors or examples that helps to convey the argument

❌ the logical jumps, holes or simply cases where it is wrong...

🧱 Implementations and limitations of it are... Other than his personal story, there's not a lot of credibility added to his message, even if I agree with him.

Review

💭 my opinions on the book, the writers style...

This is a motivational book, which is not really my style. I don't need motivation, I need wisdom, which this book lacks. I don't need to hear your story, I need to learn.

Despite having a lot of nuggets spread throughout the book, the most I remember is a general "just do it" message. Since each tip was small, underdeveloped, and loosely tied to the main idea, it is very forgotten. For example, the main sections of the book spell his "IDEA" framework, but I completely forget it by the end of the book.

Outline

📒 Notes

Introduction

We are all creative we are creative by nature. We are born creative, and it is as essential to our lives as breathing. Creativity is not a single moment where we suddenly understand who we want to be or make huge life changes. It is a subtle feeling that tugs at us, calling us to be creative as part of our daily lives Starting small reduces resistance and builds momentum for change.

Although we are born creative, it takes work to become creative. It's like a muscle that we need to train in order to fulfill our potential. It starts with accepting that we are creative limiting beliefs are toxic to wellbeing, that our ideas are worth while Self-worth is accurate assessment of your capabilities.

Following your calling is both a boost to your wellbeing, a feeling of Bursting with life, and also an answer to chronic stress that acts as a blocker for growth as it leads to tunnel vision Chronic stress is harmful, stress leads to tunnel vision. That's why when we're in a criss we see no way out. Our creative calling is the way out, and a way to fulfill our potential.

It's not about creating a masterpiece, it's about living the life we want, and the only way to do it is to start.

Introduction

• a calling is an intuitive hint, a tug we experience when we’re doing something that feels right: (Location 96)
• Creativity is a natural, life-sustaining, human function that is essential to our health and well-being. It’s as natural as breathing. (Location 106)
• We are all born creative. (Location 113)
• Creativity is the practice of combining or rearranging two or more unlikely things in new and useful ways. (Location 126)
• You are creative by nature, endowed with a near limitless capacity to make and grow new things. Accessing this capacity requires a kind of creative muscle that must be strengthened to achieve your full potential. By identifying as a creative person, accepting the world around you as your canvas, and manifesting your ideas regularly, you will intuitively create the life you truly want for yourself. (Location 132)
• Unleashing your creative capacity is, in fact, your highest calling, the key to shaping the arc of your life. (Location 141)
• You don’t need to see the whole path. You just have to take the next step. (Location 226)

Imagine

Hear Your Call

We are all born creative but this drive is usually suppressed by the education system and job market expectations conformism squashes creativity. By the time we are older that feeling is bottled deep down, and ignoring this drive is causing us real pain, and a lot of Indifference to life.

We need to trust that Intuition, that inner voice that knows what's good for us, a voice of who we want to be.

There's only one way to become a creator, we have to start doing it being by doing

We need to overcome the fear of rejection, or becoming our own critique. We can't win our inner critique with facts or thoughts, it is only overcome by action Inner critics yield to action not argument. Once we get the ball rolling, these voices will quite down. Say proudly, "I am a x" (photographer, philosopher, whatever suits you).

There are several challenges to fulfilling your calling:

1. The Starter - Those who quickly jump from one thing to another. They start with a great passion for a project, usually due to feelings of novelty. But once things get hard they abandon their project for a new "promising" one. Those previous projects linger in our minds, costing valuable cognitive resources.
2. The Noodler - Those who fear publishing their work due to Perfectionism. They say "just one more fix" indefinitely, leaving their work unpublished.
3. The prioritizer - Those who wish to create but are constantly derailed by "external demands" like work, relationships and chores, but to an extreme which stems from procrastination. They lack the proper prioritization, failing to see that the challenges/excuses will never go away, but adding creativity to our lives is only an advantage.
4. The Resister - Those who refuse to heed the call from countless reasons.
5. The Striver - Those who wish to be better, to do better, and feel a deep dissatisfaction with their work.

It's time to do what you were meant to do, and "f" on all those who try to talk you out of it. These will only fuel your ambition. It's not about finishing a novel, but rather adding writing to your daily habits, and see where it takes you Trust the Process.

Another important caveat is you are not your art. The greater the distance, the more room you'll have to grow, to not be impacted by criticism, and see where you can improve Cognitive Distancing

Hear Your Call

• It’s only through developing a capacity to create something that we can create everything. (Location 297)
• Creators create. Action is identity. You become what you do. You don’t need permission from anybody to call yourself a writer, entrepreneur, or musician. You just need to write, build a business, or make music. You’ve got to do the verb to be the noun. (Location 353)
• if you take action despite the fear and survive, it learns a tiny lesson. Over time, action by action, the volume of the negative voices goes down. (Location 377)
• Pros go to work whether they’re inspired or not. They allow for imperfection in their work. They finish what they start. They share their work when it’s finished. (Location 384)
• working on what you love is like salt, it makes everything taste a little better. (Location 448)
• You are not your art. The greater the separation between your ego and the products of your creative efforts, the happier and more productive you’ll be. (Location 498)

Walk Your Path

There's the "default path" that everyone is expected to take, because it's easier for everyone to understand. No one gives you criticism if you try to get a paycheck and earn a degree. But when you set on your own path, everyone starts questioning you, especially yourself.

There's no better way to be on your own path than just starting.

To make sure you don't quit before you fulfill your potential, you have to learn how to become the best. You need to analyze what's the winning formula for experts in your field. What makes their work impactful, meaningful, and "sales worthy" Learning from what works. Hone your craft. Distill the wining formula, test and repeat until you reach success.

Being on the creative path is never easy, you are never "safe", although it's a safer path than the "paycheck job", because you practice daily to mitigate risks, to adapt, to learn. You might even stray from your path, but like meditation the goal is to gently start again. Remember your values, hear the call, and go back on the path.

There are three main challenges you will have to face:

1. Money - not every creative calling requires you to turn this into a living, but you must reject the notion of the "starving artist". You should get paid for your work, this is what enables you to continue to do it.
2. Creative control - as the team around you grow, accept that your creative control will diminish as you will need to negotiate with others.
3. The people around you - Some will be indifferent, some will support, some will criticise. Ignore all voices and just focus on doing what you do.

Walk Your Path

• What matters is that you start. All you’re deciding to do is to try. Do whatever you can with what you have. It will never feel like the right time. You will never be “ready.” Avoid preparing too much. Start before you are ready. Start with fear. Start with uncertainty. This is one of the biggest secrets of the most creative, happy, successful people: Just start. (Location 555)
• You put the elements together in the best way you can and see what happens. Remember what works, forget the rest. Keep homing in until you’ve figured out the winning formula. Then use that formula consistently. (Location 653)
• The creative call is always present no matter how faint or how far off the path you wander. (Location 731)
• There is nothing noble, edgy, or cool about being a starving artist. Starving sucks, plain and simple. Believing in the myth of the starving artist is also a self-fulfilling prophecy. (Location 769)

You Stand out

Your creative output demands you, your uniqueness, who you are Authenticity. It's hard to "relearn" to be ourselves after the education system has taught us to be silent, like everyone else.

Being yourself requires you to focus. To choose the one thing you are truly good at and focus on that Skill synthesis.

You can't both stand out and blend in. Blending in means to give up on your creative dream. To try and be like everyone else means not to be yourself, to neuter your work, to stop growing.

Fulfilling your potential means to constantly grow and adapt. To be good at mitigating risks, and know that they're part of the process, like failures. They're necessary for growth.

While mitigating risks, it's important to hedge your bets having option B is essential for risk mitigation. If you only "go big or go home", you'll likely to back home.

Creativity is all about reps. About trying small ideas and see where it goes, to learn from them Multitrack, than to do one huge investment that is either a huge success or massive fail Binary Thinking

You have to create your own brand, to differentiate yourself from others. There's only one you, and you will never be exactly like someone else if you're only copying them.

Have your own signature, your special DNA that instantly connects back to you. Like a music style that everyone recognizes even if it's a new song.

You Stand Out

• There is only one you—you are the highest value you can contribute. (Location 833)
• Life gets so much easier once you decide to play your own game. Don’t just try to be better. Be different. (Location 956)
• When we hide what makes us unique in order to get people to like our work, we neuter our work. (Location 1030)
• you can’t stand out and fit in at the same time. If you never make anything, if you make only what you’re comfortable making, or if you make but you never share, you’re hiding. Once you start hiding, you stop growing. (Location 1046)
• Creativity is about reps, about building your creative fitness. (Location 1131)
• it’s the small risk taken to satisfy a creative whim that is more likely to lead to a real-world success than the triple-down, bet-the-house investment with some enormous hope at the other end of it. (Location 1155)
• what you should be doing when you borrow from other artists is testing things out, trying things on, and gradually building your own tool kit. (Location 1169)

Design

Develop Your System

Being creative takes work and time. To make sure you are on the right path, follow this pyramid:

1. Mindset - believing you can improve, that you can create something worthwhile, and that you have something unique to contribute, without everything else is meaningless.
2. Habits - the daily "reps" that put your creative muscles into practice. Without action, you can't be creative. Creativity is something we "do"
3. Goals - what is your creative ideal? what drives you forward?

Things that hurt your creativity (and wellbeing), and should avoid as much as possible

1. Bad nutrition - from sugar, junk food, to alcohol and drugs
2. Social media - addictive
3. News - addictive
4. Email - killer of energy and momentum.
5. Overwork - tends to cause burnout
6. Lack of prioritization - when you work on the wrong things. Play to your strengths

Things that boost your creativity:

1. Practice - You can't be good without practice. Be so good at the foundations that they come naturally.
2. Experimentation - Dedicate some time to doing something else, to play outside of your craft for creative cross training.
3. Meditation
4. Gratitude
5. Visualization - Imagine how you'll feel after accomplishing your goals
6. Movement - It refreshes the body and mind
7. Cold therapy
8. Nutrition
9. Hydration
10. Prioritize creating over consuming
11. Be organized
12. Be adventurous and play
13. Growth - hone your skills
14. Quiet - have some downtime to process your thoughts
15. Sleep

Remember that creativity is not a talent, it's a habit, one we get better at by doing Creativity is a habit not a talent.

Develop Your Systems

• what gets results: establishing a consistent creative practice and sticking to it. (Location 1241)
• being creative is certainly an attribute we can possess, but that attribute cannot be manifested, enhanced, strengthened, or made better without doing creative acts. (Location 1576)
• creativity is not a skill, it’s habit, a way of operating. The more you operate that way, the more capable you are of doing so. (Location 1581)

Make Your Space

If creativity takes time, the first step is to understand where your time goes Quantifiable self. The main culprit is Busyness, when we prioritize distractions over what's important. We focus on being busy rather than effective. We work hard but stay in the same place.

We would have to protect our time. The calendar is our friend. Most of the benefits are gained by noticing and reducing time wasted mindlessly, like social media,.commutes and distractions. Chores if can be delegated are another great source of time saving Intentionality.

Try to have a daily practice of creating, as small as possible, but strive for 90 minute sessions Time Blocking. If you don't have a lot of time, do "micro sessions". Write a single paragraph, take one photo. What matter's is Consistency.

You can also use Task Batching to clear some time by being efficient with certain kinds of tasks.

Schedule your creative sessions when you're at your prime Motivational scheduling. For many people it's early in the morning when creativity is high and analytical thinking is still somewhat dormant.

Find a good space to be creative. Having your own workshop or room is ideal, but it's not always possible. Strive for a "good enough". This could be sitting in a cafe, using a tablet for commute creative bursts, carrying a voice recorder or a sketch pad wherever you go, and find small places in your home for creativity. The goal is a place of solitude that is easily available for focused sessions.

Transitioning from a day job to creative freelance is hard. Transition bit by bit until you feel you can support yourself financially with your creative work. Do part time jobs to get some money while you dedicate more and more time to your creative work.

Do Your Best Work

You're out of excuses, time to get to work.

Plan creative sessions where you do just that - only creative work and nothing else. Remember to set the smallest goal possible, an "mvp" (minimum viable product), something small enough to be realistic, but good enough to be useful.

The goal is to enter a Flow state. Use whatever technique that works for you:

1. Have a Ritual
2. Block off distractions
3. Listen to music
4. Track your time and use the Pomodoro technique

At the beginning, we would have a creative gap, the will to create something extraordinary, while our output quality is still low.

There's no better solution than to start with quantity Practice beats perfection. Otherwise any other strategy such as learning or developing tools becomes a form of procrastination.

Just be aware that First Batch Trash. The first ones we make will be genuinely bad, but that's the only way to improve, by trying, failing, learning and moving on.

Do Your Best Work

• you’ll get better only once you stop fiddling and start making. Quality will come over time, but only if you make a lot of stuff while minimizing self-criticism (Location 1966)
• Any “overnight success” you’ve ever read about is really a ten-year master plan coming to fruition. (Location 1979)
• volume of work is the metric that matters most when it comes to closing the creative gap. (Location 2116)

Execute

Make it till You Make it

On every path towards becoming a good creator, there's a plateau. After the initial rush we end up discovering how much we fall behind the true experts, and how slowly we're progressing if at all Dunning-kruger effect.

This is where most people quit, and this is unfortunate because they fail to fulfill their potential. There's only one way to get over the plateau, and that is through. To continue on making until it reaches the level of quality you expect from an expert.

Action, not thought (or rumination) is the answer for passing the rut (and achieving high quality)

Make It Till You Make It

• Too much planning is a trap. (Location 2179)
• Stop thinking, take action, and the results will take care of themselves. (Location 2315)

Youniversity

Learning is the most valuable skill you can have, because it opens all the other doors. You can't achieve proficiency without the ability to learn Lifelong Learning. Learning has several components:

1. Inspiration - what sparks your curiosity, what keeps you up at night? What do you wish to learn
2. Personalization - how do you learn best? Are a visual/oral learner?
3. Practicing - You can't learn without trying. So try and try again - this is the only way to improve
4. Reflection - What works? How do experts do it? What can I learn from my past attempts?

Information is more available than it ever was, you can learn almost anything you want. Learning will help you draw the map of which knowledge you need to become an expert, the design the path forward.

YOUniversity

• No one is coming to save you. Experts are valuable when you’re learning new skills, but neither experts nor institutions are going to nurture you, guide you, or make your creative dream a reality. (Location 2529)

You Must Fail to Succeed

Failures will happen, even massive ones. It's like buses, there's no point in trying to catch the one that has passed. Instead prepare for the next one.

If you're wondering whether you're over planning, it's likely true.

Failures are inevitable, and they always sting. The only way to overcome them is through exposure therapy. You face it enough times so it hurts less.

Accept the suck, that's it's going to be painful, that you're going to push boulders up a hill, but this is the only way to get valuable lessons necessary for improvement Failure.

You Must Fail to Succeed

• our misguided attempts to avoid failure are the most common source of our problems. (Location 2722)

Amplify

Find Your People

Be the fan you wish you had. To make your work heard by people, you first have to participate in the community. To share, comment, collaborate, to give you have to give to receive

Go to community meetings, comment on social media, talk to people and collaborate. Put yourself out there and connect to people.

This is not only the way to get recognition, but also valuable experience that's hard to come by on your own.

There are three worthwhile communities:

1. Craft community - one that focuses on technique (such as photography)
2. Focus community - the are in which you use/sell your craft
3. Core community - people who share both communities

But the most important community of all is friends and family. Let go of toxic relationships that only drag you down, and have tough conversations with unsupportive family members, you need them on your side.

Find Your People

• go find communities of other humans who are passionate about the same things you are and get involved. Roll up your sleeves. Participate. Collaborate. And don’t hold back. (Location 2819)
• The best way to level up your own game is to level up the team around you. (Location 3017)

Build Your Audience

It's not enough to just publish your work. People won't just magically become followers. Building an audience takes work, and should take half of your dedicated time.

It starts with finding your unique voice, what separates you from the rest.

Once you found it, use it to provide value that can't be found anywhere else. Only through value people will notice you.

Then, when you have their attention, it's time to build trust. To be honest, authentic and accountable for what you publish. Trust has to be earned, and it is earned slowly (and goes by fast) Trust is built slowly and lost quickly.

Don't think about monetization until way way further in the process. Until you have a stable audience for a long period of time, then you might consider it.

Build Your Audience

• All runaway creative successes seem as though they came out of nowhere, but they always represent years of careful effort on the part of the creator. (Location 3099)
• Stay hungry, stay humble. Keep doing the work. (Location 3110)

Launch

Launching is the accumulation of your work. We can't just create all day, we have to put it out into the world.

It gets easier if we share a little frequently, we practice the sharing muscles.

Launching is a lot of work, but it builds up on the community you created beforehand. Regardless, promotion is a natural part of the creative process. You create, share, promote, cultivate community, and repeat.

Similarly, failure is a natural part of the sharing process. To reduce your fear of rejection you need to dive head first. Get as many rejections as you can, each will be a stepping stone to becoming better.

If you're not stressed about launching or don't have a desire to share, it suggests that you're not invested in your work, that it's not what you want to publish to the world.

Go with courage, confidence, and enthusiasm. You will need it in order to succeed, not just in external metrics, but the more important internal ones.

It's like optimism, whether you believe it or not - you're right. Your disposition to proactiveness and agency plays a huge role in how things will turn out Belief in agency shapes outcomes.

Launch!

• Be soft and vulnerable in creating; ferocious and bold in sharing. (Location 3448)