can’t remember if this was from a podcast or a youtube video
We talk about things like the creator economy, you might have heard of, the creator movement.
It’s this big trend that’s happening now of people going and creating online courses and their own podcasts and their own paid newsletters.
Teachable is a big part of that.
I’m a big advocate of this.
But what I think people are really missing is that relatively few people will become like a professional full-time creator, right?
Relatively few people will make a full-time living, teaching an online course or whatever.
But that doesn’t mean all of us can’t be creators.
I think this is the true implication of the creator movement is that each and every person today needs to create things, right?
They have an element of creativity in their work.
Because if they don’t, then there’s probably a machine that’s gonna be doing that soon, right?
It’s like every job, every profession left for human beings has an element of creativity, which means each of us needs to start thinking of ourselves as creators, right?
Think of a definition of creating as bringing something good, true, or beautiful into the world, right?
Anyone who is bringing something good, true, or beautiful into existence as a creator, whether that’s having a kid, planting a garden, doing a home renovation, writing a carefully thought out email to a colleague, managing someone, starting a business, selling online information products, each and every one of us has this creativity as part of our work.
So, as part of this mindset shift from just consuming, consuming, consuming, to creating, there’s a few things that will change, and I kinda wanna highlight those for you.
One is that, ironically actually, you go from public to private ways of interacting with information.
Think about how so many of us interact with information.
It’s like, we’re doing it in real time.
We’re doing it in conversation, we’re firing emails back and forth, or we’re putting things on social media.
But the secret of the creative lifestyle is actually that so much happens in private, right?
In order to come out with that amazing podcast, or that amazing blog post, or whatever it is, you need this private creative process.
You need this private kind of garden of knowledge where you develop and really refine your ideas before you go out in public.
So ironically, when you decide to be creator, you actually do more in private so that when it’s time to go public, what you have is much higher quality.
Second, when you start creating things, you really focus on the creative aspects of your work.
Your whole kind of focus shifts from what is novel to what is timeless.
So much of our behavior online, it’s new, new, new, new, new, right?
What is the notification?
What is the update?
What is the status?
What is the newest thing that just happened?
But when you begin to focus on creativity, you actually realize, wait a minute, I can’t put my attention on what is new all the time.
I need ideas.
I need thinking and knowledge that is timeless.
You start spending your time curating and saving knowledge for the long term rather than just for the needs of the moment.
Your attention shifts from what is sensational, right?
Basically what the tech platforms and social media networks and algorithms want you to look at, which is whatever is clickbait and is hype and is sensational, to actually what is more subtle, because you have your own second brain, your own digital notes, where you decide what is there.
You decide what is important.
You decide where you want to spend your attention.
And finally, you just change how you spend your time.
You actually start spending less time consuming because you just look at your digital notes and you go, wait, I have dozens or hundreds of good ideas already.
What’s the point of consuming yet another PDF, yet another how-to guide, yet another, you know, whatever it is, let me actually put to use the knowledge that I already have.
With digital notes and a second brain, you actually are confronted, you actually see tangibly all the knowledge and expertise that you already have.
And when you see it in front of you, you can’t help but wanna do something with it.
And that’s it, that is the importance.