Brian Johnson breaks down Seth Godin's The Practice: 200+ ideas on creative work that boil down to one thing. Show up consistently. The magic of the creative process is that there is no magic. Just theory into practice into mastery, closing the gap between who you are and who you could be.
Chapters
Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another heroic plus one. I love Seth Godin. As you may know, he's one of the world's most popular bloggers and business life strategists. Although we've only featured one of his other books so far, the Icarus Deception, I've read a number of others and I have been deeply inspired by him and his style and his fierce commitment to doing the work. Seth writes in the same type of pithy style as his friend. And another one of my favorite writers and thinkers, Steven Pressfield. Check out our collection of notes on his books, including the War of Art, do the Work, Turning Pro, the Artist's Journey, and a bunch of others. Today and over the next few days, we're going to talk about Seth's latest book called the Practice. The book is essentially a collection of over 200 big ideas, all about, as per the subtitle, Shipping Creative Work. How do we best do that? We master the practice, of course. As always, we're going to focus on the ultimate creative work we are each universally called to do in our own unique, idiosyncratic ways. Making our lives a masterpiece. How do we do that? As we discuss all the time, we close the gap between who we are capable of being and who we are actually being by moving from theory to practice to mastery together. By making today a masterpiece. And how do we do that? By doing the hard work to get clarity on who we are and what specifically we do when we are at our best. Then by doing the even harder work of actually showing up and honoring that protocol. Not someday and not when we feel like it today. Especially, I repeat, if today is a day we don't feel like it. And that, my heroic friend, is what we could call the ultimate practice. And by the way, you want to know what the magic of the creative process is? Here's a hint. As Seth says, and I quote, the magic of the creative process is that there is no magic. I repeat in bold italics, the magic of the creative process is that there is no magic. There is no magic. We just need to show up and do the work again. Not someday. Today.
