"But, What's My Passion? What's My Thing???"

Advice for people who think their work isn't very remarkable

Hello ye babe!

I’ve been reading your comments in response to my question posed earlier this week: why aren’t more people doing remarkable, interesting work?

Two things immediately jump out:

1. “I don’t know what I want to do, so I fall back to what I know.”

2. “How am I going to make any money doing that?”

Andddddd, around and around the ideas go, never to get off the ground.

ANYONE FEELIN’ THAT???

(Leave me a comment if this is you and tell me what’s going on in your head / heart / sweaty armpits. I want to know your situation!)

So, I thought I’d share a thought exercise with you that I suggested in the comments. 💬

While I’m talking specifically to someone who makes websites, this could apply to anything.

The thought exercise is this:

“If you could make 100 of whatever you make, completely on your own time, assuming money was no issue, what would you create?”

• 100 websites

• 100 photographs

• 100 pages

• 100 rooms

• 100 designs

• 100 ideas

• 100 outcomes

• 100 happy moments

• 100 happy clients

…what would you make?

The key here is two-fold: (a) The idea that you’re making something, and you’re allowed to be creative; (b) That you’re going to do it 100 times, so you’d better damn well have fun with it.

What would you be proud to put together? To curate? To spearhead?

This is a useful thought exercise when it comes to cutting through the mind fuckery of “but, how would I make money with that?” Suspend that question for just a minute—money can and will come later. Right now, that question is premature. The real question is this:

How can I light myself up?

None of us are very good at lighting ourselves up.

None of us know how to do that, anymore.

We only know how to be responsible. How to be reasonable. How to be logical. How to be adults. (Which we seem to think means being all of those other things.)

Talk about clouding up your creativity! What if you had permission to think like a kid again? What if that was the assignment? What if that was the job?

That’s what this exercise is designed to help you do: think in terms of play.

What’s your 100????????????

What kind of beautiful, interesting work would you curate?

Perhaps a third benefit of this approach is realizing that you don’t have to be perfect in order to “curate a collection.” You don’t have to be an expert. This is about dedicating yourself to an idea—and, anyone can do that.

When you dedicate yourself to an idea, you give yourself focus. And, when you give yourself focus, other people can focus on you, too. They can SEE you, because they can spot the pattern: just like Lewis Miller made himself visible by adhering to a pattern of planting giant flowers in trash cans, you can make yourself visible by picking a pattern, and doing it 100 times, and having fun with it, and doing it publicly.

The idea isn’t to become rich with your curation.

The idea is to put yourself into the spotlight.

Because, once people see you? And once people see your dedication to an idea? They’ll respect your ideas. And they’ll want to pay you for your ideas, too.

That’s where the money comes in.

Because, making money never comes from thinking about how to get paid.

Making money comes from doing something remarkable enough that people will want to pay you for it.