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Make Your Space

Making your space. Now, there's a couple different types of space. There's time is actually space, right? 'Cause if you don't have time for something, what do you got? You got nothing. You can't do it without time. There's physical space. I need a studio preferably with the view of the ocean. The stories that we tell ourselves matter. I do not have enough time is the number one excuse, the number one excuse that I hear for not doing what you love in this world is 'cause I don't have time. And the next time you say I don't have time, I want you to make one simple swap. I want you to say, "It's not a priority to me." Instead of saying you don't wanna go to your daughter's soccer game, that's not a priority to me. How does that feel? Bam, right? Because that's what it actually is. I don't wanna take pictures. It's not a priority to take pictures. That's just this amazing, it's like a spanking. (audience laughing) A cuff upside the ear. Hey, yo, figure this out. Busy is not busy, busy is a...

lack of priority. My least favorite thing to say in the world. I promise I've been very very busy, lot of stuff happening in CreativeLive. I have this little book that just dropped, doing those things is very hard. I found myself, "Hey man, what's going on?" Oh, so busy that has become this horrible sort of, it's a default action. It's a default statement that comes out of our mouth. And you know, when I started using busy when I first picked up photography, you know what? It got a lot of attention. Oh, you're busy. What are you busy doing? What is that? It's a cue to just get to talk about ourselves. But that actually doesn't get any work done. Busy is not busy. Busy is a lack of priority. When you say I don't have time try using, it's not a priority for me. This is an amazing little chart. The author, Stephen Covey took this from president Eisenhower, and made a two by two matrix for it. This is an amazing, (chuckles) an amazing little graph. Most of the stuff that takes our attention is down here. It's not important, but it's urgent. Also not urgent and not important. That is what we run to when we don't know what else to do, right? Oh, I'm gonna send a few of the emails like, "You haven't sent an email in six weeks." That person forgot about that email. But it's not urgent, it's not important, and you're doing it. Important and urgent, that is a no-brainer, right? Something like, I need to do this now, and it's important. It has to do with family, with your business, the core thing, a core important aspect of your life. Do it now. But here's the thing, this is where all of the best stuff is. Not urgent, but important. This is what we do last. We do basically all of the other things before we do this. This square right here will change your life. If you can make time for things that are not urgent, but very important. I put that on par with discovering what you're supposed to be doing with your life. How long does that take? Last time I checked, it takes about 304 pages. (audience laughing) This is a thing that trips people out. Remember when I didn't want the man to keep me down, I wanted to do my creativity when lightning struck. That's not how it works. Real creators, professionals, not that you all aspire to be professionals. They show up to work. They sit down every day, not always at the same time. But they try. They work on schedules, and that schedule creates results. What I would love for you to do is figure out when are you most effective? When are you most effective? For most people, this is not everybody. For most people, it's usually in the morning. The front half of the day, usually the least productive is noon to dinner time. Some people again, are creative at night. I don't care what it is for you. I don't care when it is, but if you pay attention to it, it will tell you a lot. If you're unsure, try first thing in the morning when you're groggy and you think you don't have anything to give, it's actually a really good time. 'Cause there's not a lot of negative voices in our head, especially before we look at our phones. Try that, try early in the morning, 'kay. I'm calling your bluff here real quick guys, okay? 'Cause you have a dream and that dream hasn't happened, and I'm telling you it hasn't happened for a reason. It hasn't happened because it's not clear. You haven't imagined, you haven't made a plan and you haven't started executing against it. But here's the deal. When is the time to start, yesterday? Wherever you are right now, I want you to start. And if it's late in life, and you are worried about making a change wondering if it's possible. I wanna tell you a story about the Cuban American artist, Carmen Herrera. She had her first gallery show as a painter at aged 89. She had a retrospective at the Whitney at 101. How boss is that? That is the most boss. (audience laughing) So wherever you are right now, it's time to start. Inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us, just show up and get to work. And the belief that things will grow out of the activity itself and that you will through work bump into other possibilities and kick open other doors that you would never have dreamt of. If you were just sitting around looking for a great art idea. Inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us show up and get to work. In this case, I want you to be a professional. And by professional, I don't mean a professional artist. I mean, a professional at taking action in your life. Remember small daily, creative habits. They help us understand that we can create, and through that lens we can create our life. Speaking of small daily habits. I wanna tell you a story about my friend, Brandon Stanton. Does anyone know, Brandon? Brandon is the creator of "Humans of New York." Brandon Stanton got fired from his job as a bond trader in Chicago. After failing out of college twice, and then going back finally figuring it out, got a random job offer from a friend. He had suddenly made it. He could hang his hat on this important job he had as a bond trader in Chicago, making good money. Became obsessed with markets because it gave him an identity. I'm now comfortable. I'm well-off. I'm respected by society. And then one day he showed up to work and he was what? Fired. Fired. He was fired. He talked about being fired as if the most important thing had been stripped from him. But he also realized in that moment that, he suddenly had all kinds of time. Remember time is this one thing that we all have that keeps us from the things that we want. We tell ourselves story about it. So he told himself a new story. He made up a new script, not the script that the world had written for him. But a new script and that new script was this, I love taking photographs. And more importantly, I realized that I was giving all of my time to this job, and what I want more than anything else is to control my time for the rest of my life. I wanna decide how to spend my time. And you know what, the wisest most brilliant thing I can possibly think of doing that will get everyone's support is moving to New York with no money. (audience laughing) Small daily actions. None of what he did would have been possible, if he sat back and planned and strategized. None of it. It was only through small daily actions. His first post zero likes, one comment. Just like every you first post on every platform. So wherever you are, whatever age, it's never too late. The only thing you're doing wrong is not starting. There's two kinds of space, right? We talked about the time. I'm gonna cover another one, which is physical and maybe there's three: physical and emotional. Physical space, we all want a studio with the view. CreativeLive was launched in a room that was about this big. Most of us have a basement or an extra bedroom or a corner of our bedroom, just start. Most of us commute to work. If you commute, how can you make use of that time? How can you make use of that space? How can you make use of this space while you're commuting? Maybe, it's a pair of noise-canceling headphones that unlock that two hours while you're commuting. I have left a lot of noise-canceling headphones on a lot of airplanes. Maybe some of you found them. (audience laughing) Gold, pure gold. I think this is the most powerful kind of space that there is the head space and the heart space. 'Cause this is from where we derive our compass, right? There is what social tells us or what society tells us, what our parents and the people that we care deeply about. I believe that this thing, intuition is the most powerful force inside of us. Here's the core thing. You've got this thing and you're looking backwards, you know what you're supposed to be doing. If you get quiet enough, if you experiment enough, if you play enough, you know, it's there. This is gonna trip you out. And by pump up the volume, I do not mean the music in your headphones. Although that can be very powerful sometimes. I mean, the volume of work. There's an apocryphal story that I share in the book about a ceramics class. And on the first day of ceramics class, this half of the class y'all will only have to make one piece of art the whole semester. Make it good, but you just have to make one piece of art. Y'all over here, I do not care about the quality of the art at all. But I am giving you your grade based on volume, based on the number of pieces, and how big they are and how much they weigh. Volume of work. At the end of the semester, whose art was better? Everybody over here is pointing over there. (man chuckles) (audience laughing) And it's obvious if we say it. Right, it's obvious. How long did it take you to figure out? Everyone pointed this side of the room in a quarter of a second, and yet what do we do? We're like, "Yeah, I wanna prance and be precious. I wanna be perfect." Just make it, just crank it out. I think there's an Andy Warhol quote somewhere, and I'm gonna blow it 'cause I'm gonna share it early. Just make the work. And while everyone else is judging your work, what are you doing? You're making more work. Volume is the key, volume is everything. And right now you're saying, "Wait a minute? If volume is everything, what about my skills?" The cool thing is if you made 10 pieces during the semester your ninth piece is better than your second piece is better than your first piece. It's in volume. If you remember earlier, I'm talking about repetition, the R in DEAR that is literally how, and literally the only way you can find your personal style. Volume you have to crank it out. Now with volume, you must give yourself permission to suck. (audience laughing) I had a hard time with this one. I really did. Remember I'm a striver, I'm never enough. Always feeling less than, always struggling to get recognition or adoption or connection. It was very hard for me to give myself permission to suck. But you can see that, pump up the volume and permission to suck. They kind of go hand in hand and required, right?