🤯Unknown Unknowns #90 - How Can We Create?

Welcome to the new subscribers from Small Bets!  Since there are so many new readers, it’s probably a good time for a re-introduction.

My name is Chris, I left an eighteen-year finance career in 2020, right before Covid started.  For around the last decade of my career, I felt aimless.  I was maximizing optionality by saving money but I didn’t know what I would use that optionality for.  I eventually realized that we aren't here to sit at a desk and follow orders while spending our free time recovering from the daily ordeal for forty-three years.

I’ve come to believe that the best approach to taking control of your life is the Small Bets mindset.

I was influenced by Daniel Vassallo, David Perell, Paul Millerd, Andrew Taggart, and Khe Hy among others into changing my point of view.

Here are my best essays, the first three are about leaving my job and learning how to re-identify as a creator.  The last three, one is about writing and the last two are about my relationships with my family.

1. The Path

2. Unsought Permission

3. The Dance of the Bees: Finding Your Path as a Creator

4. How to Give Great Feedback

5. 100 Years of Gratitude

6. Extending the Tail End

My recent newsletters have been about exploring creativity:

🤯Unknown Unknowns #86 - Liminal Creators
🤯Unknown Unknowns #87 - What is Creativity?
🤯Unknown Unknowns #88 - Niches Get Stitches
🤯Unknown Unknowns #89 - Why Create?

And for those of you who haven’t heard of it, you can find the first issue of the Small Bets Newsletter here.

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Writing of the Week:

We’ve gone over what creativity is and why it’s important.  The next question is, “How can I create?”

The greatest creators create without judgement.  Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Edison, their workshops had the greatest creations sitting next to junk.  Workshops are full of unfinished work - no one creates a masterpiece every time.

The “Do It 100 times” exercise is a great way to create and it helps to combat perfectionism.

Visa's in NYC until Mar13! 🗽 @visakanv

1. Do it 100 times. Write 100 songs, cook 100 omelettes, talk to 100 people. It never seems like a huge deal until you try it yourself. It’s manageable, and yet it stretches you, and you’ll be observably different at the end of it. Effective way to get a foothold on a new thing

I’m sixty-odd days into a “Write 100 words for 100 weekdays” challenge and I’ve seen how effective this exercise is.

1. By committing and executing you will shape this challenge into something you enjoy or tolerate for 100 times.  I started this challenge with the generic intent of writing a short essay every day.  I’ve narrowed my scope to writing about an opinion with logical support.  It doesn’t need to be convincing or entertaining, just an idea that’s somewhat thought through. 

2. Find out what you like.  This exercise has made me be more aware of my ideas.  I’m constantly texting myself ideas to write about in the future.

3. Find out what you don’t like.  Sometimes I started writing drawn-out, boring essays.  That’s why I added the “logical support” constraint.  Having the focus of an idea and needing some support makes me think a little deeper about the idea.

4. Collect dots.  After the exercise, you’ll have 100 data points.  You can see themes in what you’re interested in.

5. Beats the judgement out of you.  You will stop filtering and start producing.  There will be days when nothing comes out and you hate what comes out.  You quickly realize that the world didn’t end and maybe tomorrow it will be better.

6. Develop a nose for quality.  After a while, I started picking out when something is good.

7. Help find an audience.  100 things are 100 more than most people create in a year.  Combined with your better sense of quality, you now have a portfolio.

“Do It 100 times” also fits into our autonomy, mastery, and purpose paradigm.  You will evolve the activity into something that you actually want to do (autonomy).  The 100 iterations guarantee that you will improve (mastery) - and improve exponentially if you share and welcome feedback.  And you will find out exactly how you are interested in this activity (purpose).

I’ve been asked if creating is realistic.  People need money to live.  "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's."  Do what you have to do to pay the bills, but create with the time and resources that you have. 

Autonomy, purpose, and mastery are muscles that need to be exercised.  When they atrophy, you feel numb and it’s easier to slip into a routine of consuming than to restart using those muscles.

So how can we create?

1. Do things.

2. Follow autonomy, mastery, and purpose.

3. Recognize when there is mimesis, repetition, and boredom. And steer away when you see them.

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Quotes of the Week:

1️⃣ "I must CREATE a system or be ENSLAVED by another mans; I will not reason and compare: my business is to CREATE"

2️⃣ “The true method of knowledge is experiment.”  

Both quotes are from William Blake.

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Something Fun:

This guy definitely is pursuing autonomy, mastery, and purpose.

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You can find more of my writing at chr.iswong.com.

Questions, suggestions, complaints?  Email me at [email protected].  Feedback welcome.

If you enjoyed this newsletter, please share it with a friend or two.  And feel free to send anything you find interesting to me!

Leaving you in peace,

Chris