How To Be More Creative Pt. “Creative Elbow Grease”
Creating anything is hard. It doesn't matter if it's music, a book, a blueprint or really anything that didn't exist before someone sat down had a sliver of a thought and then got started building that thought into something tangible.
It always sounds fun to be creative because we think of the final product rather than the work it takes to actually produce the product. It's kind of like going to the gym, we all want to be fit but not as many of us love to work out everyday and skip the dessert line at our friends' parties.
Having run a company with "creative" in its name, and previously working on a creative team for nearly a decade, I've had countless conversations about creativity - both with people far more creative than myself and with those seeking creative advice. I've learned from Grammy Award-winning musicians, New York Times bestselling authors, and passionate creators who make things purely for themselves.
After all, "the new oil is ideas" according to Naval Ravikant. If that's true, then the new tycoons will be those who can come up with kernels of ideas and then build on those until something brand new is created.
The first and probably most important thing I've learned about creativity is this:
Don't wait on inspiration, show up relentlessly. This is by far the most common thing I've heard from successful creatives. If you wait to be inspired you might be waiting for a long time. The most important thing is to show up everyday or at least on a consistent schedule and put in your time.
It's so hard to be diligent about doing anything consistently, especially in the age of distraction we live in but it's extremely hard to put away the distractions and dive into something completely unknown like a creative session. When it comes to this I always think about one of my favorite singer-songwriters from one of my favorite bands, Glen Frey from the Eagles.
Glen Frey told a story about moving into an apartment next door to another successful writer and musician, Jackson Browne. He said that every morning he would hear the same thing. Jackson's coffee pot would go off at the same time, and then he would hear Jackson playing the same chords on his guitar about 20 times over. There would be silence for around 20 minutes, and he would come back to his guitar and start trying to build into the next part of the song with what he had been writing during the silence. He would repeat this process over and over until he had a finished product. I'll never forget what Glen Frey said about what this revealed to him, "oh that's how you write a great song it's about elbow grease."
The Eagles went on to be the only artists to have two albums in the top ten best-selling albums of all time, but it may have never happened without Glen Frey learning to write using creative elbow grease.
For being creative, like getting in shape, there are a million effective ways to do it. But showing up and putting in the work can't be replaced. Elbow grease is the only way.