Daniel C. Young | Writings

To become world-class professionals, we are often advised to think of ourselves as a business and to specialize — to identify, develop, and articulate our unique value proposition, a set of skills that we can perform better than anyone else in the world.

So the strengths-finder movement, hiring managers, and personal branding gurus all direct us to forever define our genius within, the one thing that makes us (as human capital) indispensable.

This strategy may be fitting if you are an engineer, a researcher, or a rockstar (both literarily and metaphorically); because the single quality that the market finds valuable happens to be the exact talent that you possess.

But what if the DNA dice your roll makes you more of a maverick? What if your inherited genius talent happens to be information synthesis, nuanced expressions, or poetic technology? What if, what actually makes you most valuable to your audience are unmarketable talents?

Consider this. When A) there is no pre-defined category for your genius, or B) there is not an easy way to market your most prized talent; how can your audience even begin to conceive of the possible value they would gain from hiring you?

The trick might be to actually mentally separate your skills into two sets: the most marketable and the most valuable. The marketable set is the story you tell your audience (the traditional value proposition), while the valuable one is the story you get them to tell others and themselves (the true value delivery). The former gets you in the door and the latter gets you re-hired.

So if clients and hiring managers tend to undervalue you as a jack-of-all-trade, an explorer, or an empathizer; your may need to design two distinct marketing strategies to hack society’s industrial mindset. What would your personal business plan look like if you carefully crafted these two value stories?

Put food on the table, pay your taxes, and become productive and professional enough to secure your own little corner of comfort in this world. But never forget to have your passion project. Here’s why.

Every action we take is a personal vote on what the universe should look like. Our willing participation in our jobs, our schooling, our economic and media spending tells the world that we are happy with its offerings. The passion project is our one place where we cast our voices without compromise. It is our call to move from obligation toward volition and self-discovery.

Tackling on your passion project may be one of the most difficult assignments you undertake. When you first start, you may be ignored, shunned, or criticized. If you haven’t been paying attention in life’s classroom on facing fears, learning to admit mistakes, or working well with others; you will fall short of your creative vision. Your passion project will question how serious are you about creating change that matters.

At this point, you can choose to blame your parents, creative partners, the judges, or even your audience. You can choose to resume factory work and pretend that your passion project didn’t really matter. Or, you can take take responsibility, realize and admit that we engage in passion projects not to change the world, but to change ourselves.

Every­body has their own private Mount Everest they were put on this earth to climb. You may never reach the summit; for that you will be forgiven. But if you don’t make at least one serious attempt to get above the snow-line, years later you will find yourself lying on your death­bed, and all you will feel is emptiness.

Whenever you attempt at making change that matters, you may be met with failure, criticism, and disappointment. Pursuing the meaningful, the valuable, or the unnoticed need often requires us to confront personal limitations or endure long periods of doubt and frustration. This is what creativity often asks us to do.

Creativity is a mysterious partner. She asks us to explore dead ends, learn impractical skills, work with impossible people, or expose our innermost vulnerabilities. She often leaves us feeling guilty, inadequate, and incompetent for limiting her through our own lack of abilities. We feel the passion burning inside, but on a daily basis we wrestle with blank canvases, failed prototypes, and half completed projects.

But over the years, I’ve learned that creativity meets us at our edge each and every time we attempt something that stretch our capacity. She may take us on a journey filled with grief and frustration. Yet when we stop running away from the things that make use feel bad — when we learn to make peace with frustration, stay with struggle, and allow ourselves to be overwhelmed — we allow the seemingly impossible to take form. We allow creativity to teach us what it means to be alive.

Creativity’s life lessons can only be known to those who value growth over comfort. Believe that something magical always happens when we purposefully, willingly, and courageously attempt at making epic shit.

Here is a theory that explains why we love simple things: Simplicity is the artful craft of hiding complexity. Elegant simplicity creates an illusion that we understand the totality and thus have control over the complex and the powerful.

It’s easy to grasp this with technology. We drawn to devices that feel simple because their interfaces permit us to intuitively grasp the power of their capabilities. We are lead to believe that we possess control of what we know to be complex and powerful. Hence, we can relinquish our fears and perceive the device as a useful tool that can obey our wishes. We are drawn to simplicity because of the complexity that it encloses.

Consider also well-crafted messages, like this Zen invitation to mindfulness: “Don’t just do something. Sit there.” Powerful ideas leave permanent etches in our minds when they are delivered in a container that barely exists. Less words, More meaning. Potent clarity is achieved when there is both depth and concision. Simplicity is most alluring when they cleverly conceal the complex and the profound.

Some things touted as simplicity do not possess much substance, depth, or power. Therein lies the difference between the elegant and the simplistic.

Silence is a sign that your work may be boring, safe, or just plain confusing. The public is quick to dimiss what feels clichéic, formulaic, or lazy. You may have either shielded your work from exposure to the right audience or failed to uncover an issue that matters. Stuff that doesn’t invite dialogue is the hardest to make work.

Praise is a sign that your supporters find value in your offerings. You may possess strengths and skills that others don’t have. But quite possibly, it may also mean that you’re also not growing. You expose yourself only to a limited audience, working within your comfort zone, or simply have plateaued. Praise may be a sign that you are not taking enough risks.

Criticism is a sign that you’re making mistakes, or that you haven’t achieved your goals. But it is also a sign of growth. Quite likely, you have left your comfort zone and attempted at making change that matters. You may be reaching a new audience or getting closer to a problem that people really care about. Criticism is often a first step to a personal breakthrough.

Most of us are unconscious chronic complainers. Each day on average, we make some 15–30 statements that express grief, annoyance, or dissatisfaction without any attempt to remedy the situation. Complaining is conditioned mental laziness.

We are mistaken to think that voicing our frustrations will discharge all that grief. On the contrary, complaining amplifies negative emotions, aggravates our health, and invites others to do the same. We pull a knee-jerk reaction to express the unpleasantries we unknowingly invite and thus pollute our surroundings with negativity.

Unconditioning ourselves from this habit begins by taking personal responsibility for our own displeasures. Rather than verbalizing our complaints, we simply ask: “What would I like to change about my present situation? What inner resources can I utilize to incite that change?”

If you happen to be on the receiving end, often the simple act of asking for clarification and showing genuine interest in the source of grief can be the start of transforming negativity into creative raw materials. Focus not on the negativity but on the root cause of the discontent. Maintain curiosity, and you may discover a design problem waiting to be solved.

Inspiration is the source of energy that fuels creative work. We know that a regular diet of quality inspiration can prevent us from defaulting to familiar patterns and known solutions. But much like to food we consume, not all sources of inspiration are of high nutritional value.

Most of what we encounter from our daily digital digest are pre-processed goods: available to the masses, easy to consume, and even slightly addictive. Our online collections of visual scraps, quotes, and links may provide an occasional quick fix to relieve us from creative blocks. In the long run, however, they cause us to become malnourished from voiceless creations and forms devoid of meaning.

To maintain long-term creative health, we need to process our own raw inspiration. We must find and extract the raw materials of culture from our own life experiences. The more we engage ourselves in the process of discovery, extraction, and conversion; the more personal and authentic our work becomes.

Here is a sample of what a healthy diet of fodder may include: taking the bus to work; smelling sunrise; participating in a Japanese tea ceremony; completing every lesson on code academy; catching and killing your own dinner; having a difficult conversation with a loved one.

Do these things. Then pick up your pen or paintbrush.