My brother-in-law said something to me a few years ago that was tongue-in-cheek but also one of the wiser things I’ve ever heard someone say about creative success. We were talking about things we would someday like to do besides our current jobs. He said to me:
“Charlie, I want to start a podcast.”
I was shocked because I did not know he even listened to podcasts, let alone had ambition to start one. I pressed him:
“Why do you want to start a podcast?”
“I want to be blessed with fortune and fame and the ability to help a lot of people. The thing is, I need to be doing some activity that could be a channel for this blessing. I need to open myself up and put something out there to even make that possible. It may not be a podcast, but I need to create something where it would make sense that I might be discovered or receive a windfall that gives me the resources and megaphone to help a lot of others. If God wanted to give me $500,000 right now, how would that even happen?”
His comment didn’t change my life all at once–I may not have even reacted–but it’s a comment I’ve thought about at least weekly in the years since. I’ve been a writer my whole life but only seriously writing and publishing since March 2022 (when I first took Write of Passage). This idea, that I need to create something and put myself out there in order to be blessed is one of the main reasons I have for publishing Thought Bananas.
Being blessed, as my brother-in-law puts it, is akin to creating good luck. Roman philosopher Seneca once said:
“Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.”
What’s crazy about this quote is not that it’s still true, which it is, but that it is so much easier than it was when he said it. In Ancient Rome, preparation usually meant years of hard work. And opportunity was something slow and interpersonal. Today, the bar for what “preparation” means is lower than ever, and opportunity is easier than ever to come by.
Consider Nathan Apodaca, who filmed himself in 2020 skateboarding to work, drinking cranberry juice, and singing Fleetwood Mac. He uploaded this fun moment on TikTok, went insanely viral, landed a bunch of commercial gigs, and is now acting on the TV show Reservation Dogs. The odds of this happening off one TikTok are very low. But the odds of this happening if he had never thought to film himself and upload it was zero. His preparation was literally just the work of filming himself. And the opportunity was that other people resonated with it and shared it.
Today, marrying preparation and opportunity can mean simply showing up and saying, “I like this,” or “I care about this,” or even “check out this vibe.” If you put yourself out there enough, you give yourself the chance to connect with millions of people and have it change your life. Doing this consistently is how you give yourself the chance to be blessed. The internet gives you an unparalleled opportunity to do this.
I’ve talked about this with so many people that I have got it down to a three point checklist:
Build something. The bar is lower than ever to make something. There are tremendously cool No-Code tools for those of you who want to make apps or software but can’t code. There are platforms like Substack for those of you who want to write. There are free and low cost apps you can put on your phone that let you film and edit gorgeous videos. I personally have built this Substack (Thought Bananas) and have dabbled in No-Code tools. The Substack is a weekly ongoing concern but I went from knowing nothing to building the No-Code app in two hours.
Join in. I think of the internet as primarily two things: a way to connect people and a way to exchange information. To that end, there is a larger number of communities organized around a higher number of diverse interests than ever before in human history. Somewhere on the internet, there is a group of people talking about the kind of things that you’re interested in. Go find and join that group. For me, far and away the two biggest communities I have joined have been the Write of Passage alumni community, and The Soaring Twenties Social Club.
Share what you love. Any person in the world can be their own media company. Whether you want to make videos, write a newsletter, build a community, produce podcasts–for the cost of a cell phone, you can do any of these now and find a way to send it out to people. The barriers to entry have never been lower. If Amazon doesn't want to sell your book, you can self-publish. If you couldn't become a writer at your local newspaper, you can create your own blog. Odds are you'll have more fun creating under your own name, having some skin in the game.
The best way I could recommend giving yourself the chance to be blessed is to do something weekly that combines these two things:
Build + Join = Find a community of people that have the same interests as you then find other people within that community who want to work with you on building something, or find something they are already building and offer to add help.
Join + Share = Find a community of people that have the same interests as you then curate links to stuff that you love relevant to that interest and share it with them.
Build + Share = Build something that you love and start trying to find a way to share it with others, regardless of their interest. Just put it out there!
I can’t say everyone has these feelings, but I know that a lot of people (especially my fellow millennials), were programmed to believe that those of us who were good at something or who worked hard would be “rewarded” and/or “discovered.” It was never explicitly spelled out this way, but if you’re an aspiring creative who has stumbled or hesitated along their journey, I challenge you to look deeper and see if you are “waiting” on someone to reward or discover your work.
The thing is, I’m not going to disabuse you of that happening–because it is what happens! Whether it is having your company be acquired or finding a following of millions of fans on social media–ultimately the key to success for a creative is to be discovered and rewarded by others. However, what most people get backwards is they overestimate how much people care about what you put out first or if you put out something bad.
For the most part, it is the act of creating that serves as making preparation meet opportunity. For sure there are one off examples of people who put something out once and achieved massive acclaim. (Harper Lee comes to mind in literature, and there are many one hit wonders in music.) However they are the exception that proves the rule.
Build something. Join in. Share what you love. Do it again and again. Get in the habit of creating before you worry about the quality of the creations. This is how you give yourself the chance to be blessed.
Ol' Jack was in a bad way. He was broke, jobless, his girlfriend was kicking him out. He was desperate.
"Please God!" he prayed, "Please help a man out! Today, let me win the lottery!"
But by the end of the day, Jack had not won.
The next day, he tried again: "I'm your faithful servant! Please let me win the lottery!" But once again, he did not win.
So Jack's pleas got more desperate. "Dear God!" he cried, "Why have you forsaken me? I only humbly ask that I win the lottery!"
And with thunder, the heavens opened up. A ray of light descended and a booming voice rang out, shaking Ol' Jack to his very bones: "Jack!" God said, exasperated, "I can only help those who help themselves. Buy a fucking lottery ticket!"