Book Summary – The Practice

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Aakarsh Published: Categories: Books · Creativity Tags: · ·

Author: Seth Godin

Synopsis:

“The Practice” by Seth Godin, is a book about pursuing creative work – like writing or making music or podcasting or just about anything – with a focus on process. The book’s structure is very atypical – it is like a compilation of multiple articles, each of which focuses on one particular aspect of sustaining the creative habit. Seth anchors the creative habit(s) to “art”, which is used as metaphor throughout the book. While the book is not for artists alone, Seth pushes the argument that anyone who pursues a creative endeavour, consistently, can be considered as an artist, irrespective of the outcomes. All the chapters in the book drive home the importance of creativity, discipline, process, and getting the right mindset/attitude towards creativity. After a few chapters, it gets a tad repetitive or predictable but nevertheless, the book’s motivational stance keeps it going.

The 5 big ideas from the book:

  1. Art is a tool that gives us the ability to make things better and to create something new on behalf of those who will use it to create the next thing. The foundations of art are curiosity, generosity, and connection.
  2. Creative work needs to involve some generosity. It could be through with your energy and emotional labour to help someone. Your focus should be creating a change in the world that creates impact for some person or people.
  3. The Practice is nothing but the process of doing the work – shipping the work, without being attached to the outcome. The practice suffers when we attach ourselves to the outcome. Instead, it is always better to simply show up, do your best, and learn from it. And rinse and repeat. Creatives need to find joy in Practice, regardless of the outcomes.
  4. it is very important to understand the difference between constructive feedback and external validation. Constantly seeking external validation – which is a symptom of social media era – will erode your creativity and hamper the practice.
  5. Creatives need to find their own unique space, niche, path instead of walking in the footsteps of someone else, enamoured by their success. Seth argues that following the herd or replicating someone’s work isn’t creativity.

My favourite quotes:

  1. The practice is not the means to the outcome, the practice is the outcome. The practice is all we can control.
  2. Before creating anything ask these three questions:
    1. Who is it for? You need to know who you are hoping to create a change in. What specific group of people do you want to serve?
    2. What’s it for? What problem are you seeking to solve? What opportunity do you want to make it possible?
    3. What change will it create? After consuming the thing you have created, how will people act or feel different?
  3. Process saves us from the poverty of our intentions. Obsess over your process, not the outcome.
  4. Stop taking criticism too personal and understand that your work is not for everyone.
  5. Ship often. It is only through shipping will you learn and master your craft. Too many people focus on the outcome and fail to ship often enough. It’s only through writing 100 blog posts will you improve your writing and as a result the chances of a positive outcome.

My take on the book:

The Practice has a strong echo (that repeats) of one of the key lessons from Hindu scripture Bhagavad Gita – which loosely translates as: “do you job, for you can control only that. The outcomes are beyond your control and it is better not to fixate over them while doing the job“. Seth even quotes Gita to drive another profound message: “It is better to follow your own path, however imperfectly, than to follow someone else’s perfectly”. The book essentially works as a call to action for anyone who has either been sitting on fence to start pursuing their creative work, or simply has not been consistent. What I found appealing, beyond the message of complete surrender to the process, is his perspective about creative work and how one should orient their mindset and attitude towards it.

As I mentioned earlier, the book’s core message keeps resurfacing in multiple chapters and halfway through the book, one might feel a bit bored to quit reading. But those chapters are not only about the repetitive core message. His chapters nudge the readers to think through various aspects such as purpose, the mechanics of process (in whichever way we choose to configure it), the change the process seeks to create, the specific audience, the improvement, the tenacity and persistence, and a degree of detachment.

I have always measured any creative output more by the outcome and not by the process. Seth reframed that thinking and I found it very refreshing. If you are someone who would like to bring in some intentionality into your creative work, you will like this book. It can get you started on a journey.

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