Ideas On Creative Career v1.1
by Dr. Zoltan!

The following is a list of ideas on a new thing Dr. Zoltan calls a “Creative Career.” They are not rules, and they are in no particular order. There is no system to this. These are concepts that Dr. Zoltan has learned over the past 100 years, creating large-scale projects and interacting with / learning from successful creative people from all over the universe. Some of them are business ideas and some of them are psychological clues to the origin and goal of all things. They may or may not contradict each other and apply differently to different situations, depending on what time signature you live in. This list is by no means complete (and never will be, as the author is immortal). The dominant paradigm during this transitionary time period is an obsession with Business. Let us remember and celebrate that which has been lost: Creativity. Feel free to share this list with anyone that needs a good nervous breakdown.

1.) Be able to identify what you like and why. This may seem simple, but it is actually quite difficult. Zero in on the handful of performers, creators, musicians, movies that really move you. Narrow down the list to what is absolutely the BEST. What has really changed your life? Which albums have stood the test of time and gotten better with each listen, even after 5, 10, 15, 20 years? Why?

2.) Learn to dissect elements, so that you can learn to re-create them in your own works, with your own combinations and spin put on them. Be careful! After you take them apart, sometimes they won’t go back together!

3.) Have something important to say to the whole world. You need to discover what grand story you are here to tell. How has your life been special? What is your unique perspective? If you could broadcast a single message to the entire universe, what would it be? Would it be positive? Negative? If you can establish a strong statement and make it, you can attract and unify others who find your message important.

4.) Do not lose yourself in emulating others. This may happen a lot early on, while you are still learning and changing at an incredible rate. Learn to take the ideas of others and embellish on them. What could be done with their ideas that they did not think of? Can you take their principles and apply them in a new way? Break new ground?

5.) Do not place yourself below anyone. No matter how much fame, money, freedom, and material resources someone else may have, accept that you deserve to have the same, and take your own path as seriously as they do. What you do is just as valid and real. Which means that what everyone else does is also valid and real. Calm down.

6.) Find out what your talent is. If you are not doing what you are naturally good at, you will not only be working uphill against yourself, you will be competing against people who are naturals. If you are talented at something, you probably do not realize it, because these are things that are easy for you. Do not get sucked into focusing on things you are not so good at. There is a tendency for people to want to be what they are not. Do not spread yourself too thin. There are already plenty of graphic designers, guitarists, photographers, film directors, video game composers, engineers, actresses, record labels, stand-up comedians who do a million things and do not excel at any of them. However, it IS possible to learn from anything you do and apply it to your chosen area of passion.

7.) Express yourself creatively before worrying about marketing. Damn it, if you want to sell widgets, stay out of the arts and get a job at your local Toyota dealer. There is enough contrived, mass-marketed junk in the world.

8.) Do not let the limits of business dictate your creative output. Creativity first, business second. A CD is 80 minutes long, but your imagination is limitless. 

9.) You are your first audience. Do you enjoy what you have created? If you can entertain yourself, perhaps that is all that is important. Perhaps not.

10.) Stop second-guessing yourself and trying to figure out how others are going to react to your art. Art is best when it is challenging. Artists are too obsessed these days with making everything immediately digestible and profitable, out of fear of obscurity and failure. Be brave. Make something substantial. Something that requires multiple viewings. Make those lazy consumers burn a few extra calories watching your video. This is not fast food. Art is important! 

11.) Align yourself with others who are good at what you are NOT good at. There is no way you are good at everything.

12.) Use your imagination. You do not need to follow deductive reasoning all the time. Add some chaos into the creative process. Make up something completely random, off the top of your head. Be silly and see if it helps.

13.) Sometimes, what you consider to be your least-inspired idea will be the most popular. Let it be. Be thankful that you produced any ideas at all and that someone enjoyed them, unlike “the bottom billion” humans on earth right now who do not have food, water, or shelter.

14.) Decide whether or not you want to be a leader. If so, accept all of the risk and responsibility that it requires. It will be your job to make up for everyone else’s incompetence, and to enjoy doing so. 

15.) Understand the difference between talents and skills. Talents are things that come easy to you and skills are things you work hard at to balance against your talents. 

16.) No matter where you are with your creativity or career, there are probably people out there who will think you are GREAT. If someone finds inspiration in what you do, do not ruin it for them. Do not worry about whether you deserve it or not. If it is being handed to you, accept it. Then, use that bonus energy to live up to that potential.

17.) Do not use drugs. Retain all of your faculties for as long as you can. Some are worse than others, but all drugs will eventually make you stupid and / or sick.

18.) Realize that as you progress through your career, your heroes will become your peers. You may even find that you advance past them in certain areas. Once you gain a lot of wisdom and experience, you may feel disappointment or resent them for seemingly letting you down. Your illusions may disintigrate. Treat them as you would a peer, and allow them to travel on their own path. Focus on your own goals rather than criticizing them. Be your own hero. Do not demand that others create what you want to experience.

19.) Learn to work alone, in a vacuum. Be able to keep talking even when no one is listening. The initial process of creation has to come from a place of wonder and curiosity. You have to be viscerally fascinated by coming up with ideas, whether or not anyone else cares.

20.) Learn to motivate others to contribute to your mission. Realize that everyone is motivated by different things. Some want to be a part of something important. Some want a creative outlet and want to contribute their ideas to something greater. Some want to learn. Some want to collaborate and be a member of a team. Some want popularity, fame, or recognition. Some want money. Figure out what people are motivated by so that you do not waste energy motivating through the wrong methods.

21.) Get ready to be criticized. Get ready to be adored. Get ready to be hated. See this as a process of initiation. Once you get a thousand e-mails containing seemingly random and arbitrary opinions on what you do (both positive and negative), they will lose their power. You will not even be interested in reading them anymore, even out of sick curiosity. You will be unstoppable.

22.) Do not seek approval or encouragement from others. Approve and encourage yourself. Give yourself permission to achieve your goals, simply because you want to.

23.) Be able to make sacrifices. Sometimes it is possible to have two things at once, and sometimes it is not. You must develop the wisdom to choose between conflicting options. There is only so much time in the day, and you have a finite amount of energy. Maybe it is necessary to give up some “normal life” things that other people enjoy. Family, relationships, entertainment, possessions, nice car, etc. See if there is anything you can put aside and enjoy later. Students do this for many years so that they can enjoy a better future.

24.) Spend the majority of your time on activities that are consequential to your future. It is actually possible to find activities that fulfill instant gratification and delayed gratification at the same time.

25.) When learning rules or systems, identify which ones are useful for you. Some rules can be broken or completely disregarded. Decide which traditions are important to you and which ones are not. If you want to end a song on a diminished chord, do it. 

26.) Maybe what you are creating right now will resonate with millions of people. Maybe it will be ignored for a year or two. Maybe ten years. Popularity happens very quickly, and often for unpredictable reasons. Keep at it!

27.) Be self-sufficient and be your own best friend.

28.) Everyone determines for themselves what success is. Maybe it is millions of dollars. Maybe it is being famous. Maybe it is having lots of free time. 

29.) Mind your own business. People are not as concerned with what you are doing as you think they are. If they are, it just means their own lives are boring and they are wasting energy. Do not waste your energy paying attention to people wasting their energy.

30.) Learn to say no. People who respect and care about you will not want you to do things that make you unhealthy and unhappy.

31.) Honestly ask yourself if your family, friends, and society are pressuring you to do things you do not want to do or be how you do not want to be. Maybe what is expected of you is made up in your head. Maybe the only pressure put on you is imagined.

32.) Follow opportunities that will lead to further opportunities. Do things that generate forward-momentum, so that you can profit energetically. One project should open up opportunities for the next.

33.) Learn the difference between an idea and a plan. Then learn the difference between a plan and the execution of that plan. Many ideas are best left as ideas. Many plans will be abandoned. That is OK. Enjoy them for what they are, and then go ahead and invent new ideas and plans. You may find that you are executing only a small number of plans that will bring you the most success.

34.) Enjoy what you are doing, or do not do it right now. There are plenty of other things to do every day. 

35.) You can measure and quantify art in any way you want. Invent a system. Minor chords are worth 5 cents and major chords are worth 1 cent. Use this to price your mp3 files. Does that sound insane? Not any more or less insane than 99 cents a song. Why set a price at all? What is music worth? What is ANYTHING worth? You decide. 

36.) The commercialization of art has resulted in an overwhelming glut of templates and copycats. Everyone thinks they deserve to be rich and famous by doing exactly what the last successful person did. Do something new. In any way you can.

37.) There is a certain amount of your “success” that you can control and a certain amount you cannot. What that “certain” amount is, you cannot be certain of. 

38.) Do not draw a hard line in your mind between “you” and “people who are successful.” VERY IMPORTANT: Do not let a small-town mentality infect your mind.

39.) Get on the World Showcase. Develop a World-Class Mentality. When you are ready, try moving to New York or Los Angeles (or some other “real” city) and be willing to go up against the most powerful and hard-working in the creative industry. In these major metropolitan areas, you can come to understand the sheer magnitude of how many people (most of them posers) are trying to succeed, and figure out which tired-out patterns they are all stuck in. You will also find out that there are thousands of people with less talent than you but who are willing to work 100x harder than you are. On the flip-side, try living in the middle of nowhere and see what you can learn from that. 

40.) Trust your own ability to consistently create new ideas in the future. Commit to yourself over your entire lifespan. Life expectancy is 80 years. Yet many people grow old and worn out at 30. Why? 1/3 of the way into life is a terrible time to stop being creative.

41.) You do not have to have it all figured out or work according to any standard time-line. Do things when you are ready.

42.) There are many “asymmetrical” ways to survive on planet earth as a result of your art. Not all of them are direct, obvious, or on schedule. And they change all the time. Be thankful if one of them works to your advantage at a certain time.  

43.) A creative career is unpredictable. You will travel to many strange places and meet many strange people. If you want a safe, predictable outcome, you’re in the wrong place.

44.) Don’t try to micromanage the results of your efforts. A lot of improbable things can and will happen. You never know who is watching, or where that single mp3 file might end up.

45.) Don’t be too strict with your rates. Look at the big picture and realize what sorts of additional opportunities or benefits can come out of any situation. Work for cheap or free sometimes. Help other people out with their projects. Accept help, too.

46.) Money is not what the universe is made of. Recognize its use as one tool for exchanging energy in a society, but realize that there are other ways of exchanging creative energy. Don’t get locked into only one economic system. Not everything can be measured in dollars, euros, pesos, or whatever type of colorful paper or metal you and billions of your friends are hypnotized by.

47.) Consider yourself lucky if you make any money at all. Many great artists, poets, and inventors die bankrupt and insane.

48.) Do not expect anyone to care about you more than you do. You have the ultimate responsibility to look after yourself. No one else is in your body or mind.

49.) Be yourself. It is the only way to attract people who will appreciate you for who you are.

50.) Learn to manage your own time. Do not wait for someone else to tell you when it is time to do something.

51.) Not everyone in the world is going to like you. So what? It is not your job to manage or control anyone else’s likes and dislikes. Let them make their own decisions and dislike you if they want to. There are too many people out there to waste that much time on.

52.) Learn to work as hard and diligently for yourself as you would for a boss. Wake up on time. Complete tasks on time. You owe yourself more respect than you owe a day job. To your boss, you are replaceable. To yourself, you are not.

53.) Understand that your talent is a long-term investment. Do not be shaken up by short-term losses, missed opportunities, or rejection. If you stick with it, you will get more than one lucky break.

54.) If you are going to ask for career advice, ask someone who is qualified and experienced — someone who has been there and back. Do not ask your depressed aunt, who has worked at a grocery store her entire life. Unless you want to work alongside her at the grocery store.

55.) Try and find a mentor. Then find another one. Always seek someone who has more experience if possible.

56.) Surround yourself with people who have succeeded in your field. As a second choice, surround yourself with people who have succeeded in any field. Seek out people you can learn from, or who can learn from you. Focus on upward motion and growth. How many of your friends are committed to this principle, and how many are going nowhere? Are they growing along with you?

57.) Be OK with others not being as talented as you. They are probably talented at something you are not. This may be hard to believe, but that is because it is rare.

58.) Sometimes you will learn about people who stumbled into their “success” without any effort. Perhaps they were born into it, inherited money, or they are just good looking. This often happens. But that sort of success is not sustainable over time and will not grow. These people usually end up on reality shows and horrible gossip magazines. They will most likely destroy whatever is handed to them, because they did not learn the principles to nurture success from the beginning. You are after the real thing.

59.) Learn to balance creativity with organizational skills. Manage your own affairs and take care of your own business. Do not be a flaky artsy type who can not take a shower or buy groceries. Plan things a day in advance, then plan things a week in advance, then a month in advance and so on. Learn to live in the future. Prepare for your life, rather than always living in a state of panic and emergency. You will be amazed at how much energy and time this frees up to be creative.

60.) Find inspiration anywhere, in anything. Look at the people and things around you and try to find a story in them.

61.) Draw upon your experiences in life to encapsulate them in your art. Use it as a tool for expression of psychological topics. This can save money on therapy. Think of your work of art as a talisman that you are channeling yourself into. What would represent you and your life, if you boiled it down?

62.) Use fiction as a way of exploring aspects of life that would otherwise be unacceptable. Try to project yourself into the mind of someone you would not otherwise understand. Roleplay.

63.) Play games that will help stimulate your imagination. Games like Dungeons & Dragons are great for enhancing your inner vision.

64.) Collaborate in order to focus on your strengths. Build a diverse team of specialists that have unique talents. Let everyone do what they do best.

65.) Share your ideas with others in order to gain outside perspectives. Maybe someone will find a flaw in your idea or see it in a new way you hadn’t thought of. You are not obligated to take their advice.

66.) Sometimes collaboration can kill a good idea. An idea that expresses a single, unique viewpoint is often more powerful than an idea a group can agree on. Betraying the tribe and making a strong choice is sometimes best.

67.) Study and experiment with all forms of media — don’t lock yourself down to only music or writing or drawing. You can often learn concepts from one discipline and apply them to others.

68.) It is not necessary to be 100% unique. In fact, it might even be impossible. Figure out which creative elements you want to bend and break, and which standard practices you will accept. If I type the phrase, “The entire earth bulged and exploded like a toilet full of hot dogs,” I am still using formal sentence structure to convey a convoluted and strange idea. I am typing in English. You are reading it on a computer screen, which is a standardized tool. You can only be so weird.

69.) Stravinsky wrote strange music for traditional orchestra instruments. What would he have done with a computer? Use technology to your advantage. Use it to do something you couldn’t do before.

70.) It is not necessary to repeat yourself. If you’ve already written one 5,000 page book about Social Metaphysics, maybe one is enough. Don’t look back at what you’ve done and measure yourself against it. Move on and try new things that stimulate you and make you feel like life is an adventure.

71.) Exercise. Eat healthy. Energy invested in these two things will help you immensely. Get enough sleep and you will maximize your enjoyment of the experiences you have while awake. Do not rush through life, racing from place to place and fooling yourself into thinking you are getting more done. Do only a few things and do them well, and take care of yourself in the process.

72.) Do not count on being given an opportunity. Opportunities will present themselves if you build a strong nucleus and be the center of your own career energy. It is not about what some rich producer has to offer you, it is about what YOU have to offer that will make people want to work with or for you. Do not beg for others to share their success with you. Do not chase success, attract it.

73.) Learn to sit and do nothing. Find a comfortable chair and do not watch television, do not listen to music, do not read a magazine. Turn off your cellphone, get away from Myspace / Flickr / Facebook and your friends or pets. Do not keep bombarding your mind with external stimulation and cramming things in from all directions. Just enjoy your own mind and realize that nothing bad is going to happen to you if you sit by yourself and shut off to the world. Look inward and see what you can find.

74.) Be strong. Become a mental weightlifter. Weights will not lift themselves to achieve the results you want, and neither will your mind. Develop your willpower and learn to fight through hard times.

75.) Make mistakes and then learn from them. Lose money. Lose friends. Get fired from your job. Go broke. Once you hit bottom a few times, you will not make such scared decisions. You will find out that you can start over again and again, with more knowledge and less fear. Many great people throughout history have done this repeatedly. You will also find out who your real friends are.

76.) Make your own decisions. Do not seek endless advice from others. No one else is the authority on your life path. Answering your own questions is the only way you will learn to trust your own mind.

77.) Do not stop dreaming. Our imagination is the most important tool that we have. Mythology, legend, fiction… very powerful stuff! These abstractions stay with us for thousands of years and continue to inspire us.

78.) Art is a playground for your imagination. Let it go there and go crazy. No one is going to get hurt. 

79.) The majority of those professing to be creators are really just seeking fame and / or fortune. Fame and Fortune are best experienced as the effect, not the cause. Somehow, it all ended up backwards. The horse died a long time ago and it is being dragged under the cart.

80.) Do not listen to charlatans who try to sell you the secret, magical tricks and techniques to succeeding in a creative career. Creativity is a mysterious process, one that cannot be completely controlled. Enjoy it!

81.) Life is often asymmetrical. It can’t always be measured in nice, round numbers that are catchy and memorable. Therefore, we’ll stop at 81 for now.

-Dr. Zoltan!
drzoltan@drzoltan.com
http://www.drzoltan.com

{ This post was written and approved by Dr. Zoltan! If you wonder how these eggs taste so real, please visit http://www.drzoltan.com/blog. Or just accept the fact that complimentary colors do not actually exist, and neither does Ryan Adams. }