A part time job changing the world

One of the errors artists make is turning a single activity into the center of gravity of their creative universe.

Doing so is ultimately disappointing for them, and also unfair to that one project. Because that’s too much pressure to put on a single endeavor to fulfill their artistic needs. It taints both the process and the product.

What’s more sustainable is to build a diverse portfolio of creative investments. That’s the only path to making sure the inevitable delays, derailments and discouragements along the journey don’t knock them off course.

If someone’s day job is boring right now, but their side hustle is thriving, then they will still feel fulfilled. Or if their painting practice is firing blanks at the moment, but development of their new software app is gaining traction, then they’re less likely to be standing out on a ledge somewhere.

Because in the back of their minds, they know they’re trying to remake the world into somewhere worth traveling through. This diversification is critical to effective personal creativity management. All thriving creative professionals encircle themselves with an assortment of projects that fulfill their various needs.

And not to the point that they’re spinning too many plates, but it’s enough of a mixture so that they’re not dumping their entire creative load onto a single activity.

Do you have multiple centers of creative investment that have an active role in adding to your growth?

If not, here’s a suggestion that’s been helpful in my own career:

Give yourself a part time job changing the world.

Okay, this might sound idealistic and grandiose, but that’s kind of the point. The prospect of starting your own thing, particularly a project that has the potential to ratchet up our species to the next level, gives you enormous amounts of energy.

Launching a new endeavor that makes you feel like you’re using your gifts to bring something worthwhile into the world that wasn’t there before, it’s the most powerful antidepressant on the market.

Theil, the billionaire inventor and investor, wrote a bestselling book about changing the world. He says that as a good rule of thumb is, proprietary technology must be at least ten times better than its closest substitute. Anything less than an order of magnitude better will probably be perceived as a marginal improvement and will be hard to sell, especially in an already crowded marketplace.

This rule applies to all of us, whether we’re in the technology game or not. Once we frame our extracurricular creative pursuits around an exponential degree of global impact, waking up in the morning isn’t so hard anymore. Getting through the day isn’t such a slog anymore.

Even if other areas of our creative life are status quo at best and depressing at worst, our part time job changing the world compensates for that. Even if the culture around us is going to hell in a bucket, at least we’re energized by the thought of making the world a more efficient place.

Remember, personal creativity management is a function of diversification. Don’t make a single activity the center of gravity of your universe.

Carve out time in your daily routine to make the world a better place with your gifts. There are worse ways to spend an evening. A

re you making a single activity into the center of gravity of your creative universe?