Indifference.

It’s one of our greatest fears as professional creators. We pour our heart and soul into our work, and gather the courage to share it.

And the response is…silence.

Non-response.

Crickets.

The opposite of indifference is remarkability.

Remarkability is the quality of work that gets people talking. It’s when people feel compelled to share their experience of your work with others.

But how can we make remarkable work? I want to share with you two ways.

Who are your ​mentors​?

A trusted mentor has perspective and experience that we don’t have. They have been where we want to go. They have made the film, written the book, faced the criticism. They have picked up the pieces when all seemed lost.

We go to great lengths to cultivate mentors, and when we have one, they are worth more than gold.

Yet there are two common mistakes I see creatives make when interacting with their mentors: disregarding the mentor’s advice, and failing to follow-up with their mentor.

No significant growth happens inside of your comfort zone.

Building muscle, learning a new language, learning a cutting-edge skill in your field. All require you to endure discomfort, stress, and even pain to reach the goal.

Think of two artists. One seeks out a single activity every day that pushes her out of her comfort zone. The other avoids all discomfort and tries to replicate past successes.

After one year, which artist do you think has experienced more creative growth?

In a superstar economy, the best get way more than the almost best.

So how should you respond as a creative artist? Here are two advanced ways you can position yourself to succeed:

1. Cross-train to become the best at a niche, cutting-edge aspect of your discipline.

2. Instead of fighting to be hired amid a sea of qualified artists, organize a project that others want to be a part of.

Let’s break it down.

Boredom is boring. It feels painful. At the slightest twinge of it, our brain screams for relief.

Perhaps that's why so many companies exist to entertain us. Constantly. No need to wait in line—here’s a video. No need to drive in silence—take your pick from this podcast, audiobook, or album. Going to the bathroom? Don’t just sit there, take TikTok with you!

It seems our mission is to eradicate boredom in our lives as if it were a plague.

But is boredom a plague? Or could it be a hidden wellspring of creativity?

Adam Grant knows how to produce at an elite level.

At age 28, he became the youngest professor to be granted tenure at the prestigious Wharton School. He later became its youngest Full Professor.

He was Wharton’s top-rated professor (yes, there is such a rating) from 2011–2017.

Before becoming a professor, Grant was an All-American springboard diver, an advertising director, and a professional magician.

When writer Cal Newport profiled Grant for his book Deep Work in 2016, Grant had already published sixty peer-reviewed articles in his field.

I started The Creative Process Newsletter back in June so that I could share timeless principles and concrete examples of creativity. Now that we are over six months in, let’s reflect on what we’ve learned. Here are five top lessons that I focused on in my newsletter articles in 2023.

Last week we talked about ​how to prepare​ before a Creative Deep Work session. It’s just as important to take time at the end of a session to reflect. ​To finish well​.

Think of your reflections as feedback, not judgment. How did things go? What can be improved?

Asking the question “where did I fail today?” is a supremely hopeful question. If you don’t identify where you’ve faltered, you are more likely to fall into the same trap in the future.

If you want to get better faster, start reflecting on your work every day.

Here are four questions you can ask at the end of each session.

You and I have talked before about the creator’s daily struggle and how important it is to cultivate your very own creative deep work routine as a daily habit.

Sometimes the hardest part is just to start. That first five minutes. That’s why it can help to add a ritual to the beginning of your work sessions.

Think of it as a mindful warmup, a transition from everyday noise to creative flow.

I call it the Prepare Phase of your creative deep work routine. Here’s how to do it.

Sometimes the smallest experiences can lead to significant realizations. Here’s a story of one realization that has to do with film music, friendship, and a box of donuts.

Some time ago, I went with some of my university music students to meet Ron Jones. It was an extremely snowy and icy day in Winter, and we almost didn’t make it over the pass in our fleet van.

But this was not an opportunity to be missed. Ron is an accomplished film and TV composer. He worked in Hollywood for decades as the lead composer for shows like Duck Tales, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Family Guy, and many more.

Ron had generously agreed to give us a tour of his studio and a private seminar on careers in the film industry. We learned all about his composition process, saw his studio in action, learned about networking and the realities of the film music industry.

But my biggest takeaway from that day was not about music. It was about friendship and hospitality.

It was about how to be a good hang.

Two quick words of wisdom for you today, from Marcus Aurelius.

1. “Stop letting yourself be pulled in all directions.” (Meditations 2.7)

2. Know your life’s purpose: “People who labor all their lives but have no purpose to direct their every thought and impulse toward are wasting their time—even when hard at work.” (Meditations 2.7)

Don’t be distracted this week. Take action to extract yourself—kindly but firmly—from commitments that pull you away from your purpose.

Mark

P.S. A great way to find your purpose, or to keep your focus on it, is to ​journal​ about it every day.

We spend much of our lives trying to avoid it.

As adults, we deny it’s very existence in our past experiences.

As friends, we lie or equivocate to our loved ones to avoid being the bearer of it.

As parents, we will move heaven and earth to shield our kids from it.

What is it?

It matters how we finish. The end of a task. The end of a meeting. The end of a conversation. The end of the day—before we disengage from our work and turn our attention to our family and friends. Before we release our work into our unconscious until tomorrow.

Josh Waitzkin, whose singular accomplishments we’ve talked about before, once had a conversation about top performance with Olympic skier Billy Kid. Billy asked Josh: what do you think are the most important turns of a ski run?

Learning something shiny and new is easy. Deepening your understanding of something you already know is harder.

New ideas are a dime a dozen. But good ideas? The ideas that will change your perspective or shape your art for the next six months, the next six years?

Those are rare jewels, and they're often already there your mind's ore. You just have to mine for them.

And the best way to mine your own mind is to write down your thoughts. Journal like ​Dorothea Brande​ or ​Josh Waitzkin​. Write a letter to a friend like ​Seneca did​, sharing one piece of wisdom that you are meditating on.

Before he was the drummer in Nirvana, before he was the frontman of Foo Fighters, Dave Grohl was just a punk kid drummer from Virginia who loved music and wanted to make it his life.

Obsessed with music, he spent all his time learning the music of his heroes, practicing in his room, playing drums on pillows, listening to their recordings again and again. He learned directly from the recordings until he could play them all—every thundering drum roll, every crash, every hit.

He dreamed of one day getting to play with his heroes—literally dreamed about it.

There’s a moment in the song “The Story,” written by Phil Hanseroth and sung by Brandi Carlile, when the beat stops momentarily. Out of the quiet, Carlile suddenly scream-sings the line “All of these lines across my face.”

Coming about two-thirds of the way through, it’s the emotional high point of the song. A stirring jolt that grips the attention in the way that great music can.

In the song, Carlile is singing about how our scars tell our stories. How our imperfections make us who we are:

All of these lines across my face,
Tell you the story of who I am
So many stories of where I’ve been
And how I got to who I am

A QR code is a great way to share linked resources with others. But there are so many QR code generators, how do you know which ones you can trust? Here are two methods using trusted companies that are widely used: Adobe and Canva.

What’s your number?

Steven King’s number was 30. Writer Robert Pirsig’s was 121. Theodore Geisel’s (better known as Dr. Seuss) was 27, and Madeline L’Engle’s was 26.

These are the number of times these authors’ books were rejected before they were finally published.

James Patterson's first novel, The Thomas Berryman Number was rejected by 31 publishers before it was accepted by the 32nd. The novel went on to win the Edgar Allen Poe Award for best first novel, and Patterson has sold hundreds of millions of books. What if he had stopped after 30 tries?

One of my favorite sketches on the show Portlandia is called “Did You Read It.” In the sketch Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein meet up at a coffee shop and get in a battle to see who has read more widely.

It starts innocently enough: Carrie: ”Hey did you guys read that thing in the New Yorker last month about how golf is an analogy for marriage?” Fred: “I did. I did read that. Did you read the thing in McSweeney’s that was comparing CD tracks and album tracks? Did you read that?” Carrie: “Ya. Did you read…”

The back and forth continues, and pretty soon they reach a fever pitch trying to outdo each other. They become locked in a battle of performative well-readness.