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- Stop sanding down your awkward edges
Stop sanding down your awkward edges
Be satisfied to be weird, to be judged and to do things differently.
Enda Mac Nally
August 14, 2024 • Read it in: 6 minutes
SMALL UPDATE: I’ve moved the newsletter from Convertkit to Beehiiv
You might notice a few small differences here and there. Let me know if anything’s not working!
On choosing to ‘waste’ a few hours.
Last week, I shared this quote:
“We waste years by refusing to waste hours”
I took it to heart, and decided to ask myself:
‘In two years time, what would I be glad I took the time to learn this week?’
The answer came to mind pretty quickly.
I've used Figma for the odd few bits of design I do for a few years now, but I knew I could really do with revisiting the basic principles.
So I bought this course, and spent 6 hours on it.
Nothing to show for it thus far, but honestly- I’ve already picked up a few things that I know will hugely improve my workflow.
Here are 3 things that have been on my mind this week:
I came across an old episode of a podcast called The Imposterous.
The concept is simple- they interview creatives on the topic of imposter syndrome, and end by reassuring them they’re valued and that they belong.
Ironically, the Nils Leonard episode dispenses with that conceit pretty fast:
"I’m not sure creatives do want to belong. I think they want to stand out, do the weird thing, be unique,"
He talks of his time working as an ad agency designer, and the frustrations that led him and his co-founders to start Uncommon, and agency that does most things differently.
The main part is doing work that stands out- not so it will be accepted and awarded (which it is), but so it will be seen.
Stop sanding down your awkward edges and be satisfied to be weird.
The bits that don’t fit are the only ones worth sharing.
In business, you can screw up a lot, and still not fail if you have the core basics right. This means you’ve chosen the right problem, serve the right audience, and have found yourself landing at the exact right time.
Shaan Puri says as much about his time at Twitch.
On a recent episode of My First Million, he noted how:
“...Twitch could get a hundred things wrong internally but it didn't matter, because they had a network effect, they had a moat, and basically once you get a marketplace to work you can now screw up so many things [and not fail].
[...]
…they got the core thing right [...] and that gave them the privilege, the right to be wrong,"
They were on the right wave at the right time, which gave them leeway to make mistakes and still not fail.
It chimes with this section of Noah Kagan’s book ‘Million Dollar Weekend’:
“You, dear listener, are a surfer.
What you are selling, the product or service is your surfboard.
The market is the wave and the wave is what matters most.
Even if you are a great surfer with an amazing board, you will still fail if you don’t have a good wave to ride.
A tidal wave would be ideal but any good big wave is just fine."
One of the simplest and best principles that I picked up from reading James Clear’s ‘Atomic Habits’ is what he calls ‘habit stacking’:
"One of the best ways to build a new habit is to identify a current habit you already do each day and then stack your new behavior on top. This is called habit stacking." [...] "Rather than pairing your new habit with a particular time and location, you pair it with a current habit,"
One of my strongest existing habits is writing this email every week.
One of my weakest is being consistent with posting to social media.
So, I’m going to try this out in practice.
I’ll be building social media time and outputs on top of my existing newsletter writing process. This will hopefully help me to grow the audience for the newsletter, as well as taking the sting out of posting more frequently.
Start right where you are.
Here are some other things:
🎨 'Show Your Work' by Austin Kleon
Fun short read about sharing your creative process as you make the work.
🪅 ‘Piñata’ by Freddie Gibbs
Freddie Gibbs / Madlib collab is 10 years old and still sounds great.
☠ ‘Nightclub Canary' - Dead Cross
Mike Patton on singing (screaming) for a living.
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