You Can’t Build a Sustainable Career by Being a One Hit Wonder
My new book Unmistakable: Why Only is Better than Best hits shelves in just a few weeks. Right now I’m in the process of marketing, publicity and all the other launch activities that go with publishing a book. When a friend asked me yesterday what I was up to I said: “ I’m laying the groundwork for the next book, and talking to my writing coach about it tomorrow.” She said, “you never stop do you.”
- Seth Godin has written 18 best-selling books and more than 6000 blog posts. He still wakes up and publishes something every single day.
- At the very end of his book Do the Work, Steven Pressfield says to pop some champagne, go to dinner, celebrate finishing a piece of work, wake up the next day and “start the next one.”
- Benjamin P. Hardy might just be the most read writer on Medium. He’s also produced a substantial body of work here and keeps on ticking.
- When I posted pictures of my book on Facebook for the first time, Ryan Holiday said the exact same thing to me “start the next one.”
There’s one thing that all prolific creators know, even if they don’t outrightly say it. Momentum is power. The loss of momentum is kryptonite to creative work. You simply can’t build a sustainable career by being a one hit wonder.
One Hit Wonders
The always on instant feedback nature of the internet leads to a lot of one hit wonders, and people aspiring to follow in their footsteps.
- Blog posts go viral
- Youtube videos get millions of views
- Something funny gets retweeted 100,000 times.
What we don’t see however is what a small fraction of the internet these things are. Not only that they are eventually forgotten. As Seth Godin likes to say “would we miss you if you were gone?” How could we possibly miss a one hit wonder if they were gone? They weren’t even here that long. Most of these things are built off public opinion, which is at best a fickle currency and changes from week to week.
One of the hardest things to do is to separate your work and the effort that you put in from the results that might come out of it. An actor doesn’t control the movie around them. They don’t control what the other actors do. They don’t control the marketing budget. They don’t control the distribution. They could do the role of a lifetime, but the director or editor could mess it up in post production. If you’re happiness with your job and your career is dependent on how the movie does at the box office or how the critics respond to your role, you have now placed your happiness with your own life in the hands of other people. And that’s a recipe for profound disappointment. — Ryan Holiday
Being a one hit wonder might temporarily boost your ego, but that’s about it.
Listen to Ryan Holiday on Unmistakable Creative
Build a Body of Work
Your body of work is everything you create, contribute, affect and impact. For individuals, it is the personal legacy you leave at the end of your life, including all the tangible and intangible things you have created — Pamela Slim
Throughout history, the artists who have touched our hearts and minds, who have left a lasting impact, who we’ve missed when they were gone have built substantial bodies of work.
- The best filmmakers and actors have made dozens of movies.
- The best musicians have recorded dozens of albums.
- The best authors of have not only written multiple books, but written essays, articles, and more.
- The renaissance men and women of our time have created prolific bodies of work across multiple art forms.
A body of work is something that you make long-term commitment to, it’s a decision to play the infinite game. Your cumulative output matters far more than any individual thing that you create. Make something every day and in the words of Austin Kleon, Show Your work.
Be a Life Long Learner
It is not enough only to be a student at the beginning. It is a position that one has to assume for life. Learn from everyone and everything — Ryan Holiday
Despite having written a million words and three books, I know that I still have a long way to go as a writer. I want to go from writing 1000 words a day to 2000 and so on. I want to be able to produce my best work on a daily basis. After listening to Anders Ericsson talk about the elements of deliberate practice in his new book Peak, I’m thinking about how to alter my daily practice to improve.
There’s nothing more dangerous than believing that you know everything you need to know about your craft. This leads not only to complacency but a willingness to settle for mediocrity when it comes to the quality of your work.
- Read voraciously
- Treat writing or whatever your craft is as a practice
- Always carry a notebook and in the words of Jessica Guzik use the shit out of it
Just because you’ve finished your formal education it doesn’t mean you stop learning. I’ve learned more out of school than I ever did in all my years in school combined.
Dispelling the Myth of the Defining Moment
In an interview on Unmistakable Creative, Creative Live founder Chase Jarvis told me that he’s often asked what the defining moment was in his career. His answer?
The 10 years that I worked my ass off.
Listen to Chase on Unmistakable Creative
There’s no such thing as an I’ve made it moment. The work doesn’t stop. The problems don’t go away. The time to double down on your effort and commitment is not when the shit hits the fan, but when things are going really well. That’s how a momentum window goes from being a moment in the spotlight to a sustainable career.
If you don’t follow it up with something, then something else, and then another thing, a career defining moment can become one that means absolutely nothing other than being a one-hit wonder and wasting a lot of potential.
I’m the host and founder of The Unmistakable Creative Podcast. Every Sunday we share the most unmistakable parts of the internet that we have discovered in The Sunday Quiver. Receive our next issue by signing up here.
