your job as a creator is to take risks.
and damnit...
your job as a creator is to take risks.
and damnit, here's the worst part: the people around you won’t want you to. because it’s not in their immediate interest for you to push the envelope and try something besides your normal schtick.
this goes for audiences as much as your manager or producer. they won't like it at first. they will throw a fit about it. "i miss the old [insert your name]."
and yet, it is your job to risk it anyways. because that's what's actually in everyone's best interest.
the key for longevity in any domain (including life itself) is growth. and an ironic thing about sustainable growth is that it requires a near constant element of death and destruction. for something new to take shape, something has to die.
in art and business, this all boils down to taking intelligent risks. and to do that, you need to cultivate high levels of self-awareness. so that you can figure out when you are becoming too comfortable and when you are being reckless.
smart risk-taking is a balancing act.
you don’t go in a 50 foot wave if you haven’t mastered a 5 foot wave. that's reckless.
but staying in that 5 foot wave for too long without graduating to the 10 foot wave is blocking you from building momentum and achieving your ultimate potential. that's selfish.
you’ve got to keep attacking the next thing, just outside your comfort zone -- a feat that is much easier when you surround yourself with friends and creators that cheer you on when you take that bigger wave. even when it doesn't seem logical or totally safe.
good friends know: the creator’s job is not to follow the thread of logic, but to dial up inspiration and heed the call of the soul. which speaks in feelings, not words.
J.K. Rowling was rejected by 12 publishers before one approved a run of only 5,000 copies of the first Harry Potter book in the UK.
nobody knows what’s gonna work until it does.
in every major commercial success, there is timing and there is luck. and there is also an artist behind the project that was scared to death it would never see the light of day, or that when it did, it wouldn't hit. but they went for it anyways... and believed in it enough to call it forth.
the job of the “industry people” is to try and guarantee hits and make reliable money (impossible). which means they do everything in their power to eliminate risk out of the creative process (also impossible). hollywood people fast follow trends as a proxy. it's why so many films and shows feel the exact same. it's why anything original seems to have the same rejection arc as Harry Potter.
your job as a creator is to create what’s missing. what someday might be a trend. what the industry people don't even know should exist... yet. what no one knows will work... not even you.
the tricky part is: as a internet creator, you might feel the pull to wear the hat of the “industry person” all by yourself — doing research about what is “working” on social media right now and trying to strategize to reach a particular outcome.
the problem is: this reverse-engineering never works. not really, anyways.
the only insurance policy for your career is to just keep taking risks. to get comfortable feeling misunderstood. to just try things for the sake of it. and to muster the courage to believe in your truest vision when no one else sees it.