Moments of Conception 186 - The Forging Scene from Incognito

September 22, 2015 2:16 PM

All creativity begins with the moment of conception.

That little piece of kindling that gets the fire going. That initial source of inspiration that takes on a life of its own. That single note from which the entire symphony grows. That single spark of life that signals an idea’s movement value, almost screaming to us, something wants to be built here.

Based on my books in The Prolific Series, I’m going to be deconstructing my favorite moments of conception from popular movies. Each post will contain a video clip from a different film, along with a series of lessons we can learn from the characters.

Today’s clip comes from the forging scene in Incognito:

Ideas are free, execution is priceless. I’m a big believer in small victories. Getting your
brain wired into little goals and achieving them. Even if it’s as simple as
writing an action item on a sticky note, doing it, and crossing it off. The
point is getting into the habit of continually setting goals that have to be
met. The point is surrounding yourself with concrete evidence of execution on a
small scale, which inspires you to achieve bigger things down the road. This
past year, for example, I stopped make to do lists. Because they were just
scraps of paper filled with ideas. But I don’t need ideas, I need I dids. And so, instead, I started
keeping a victory log. A real time register of my executions. I bought a five
dollar day planner from the office supply store, and instead of writing wishes for what I wanted to happen
at the start of the day, I started writing achievements for what I made happen
as the day progressed. Such a simple change, and yet, it was life changing.
Emotionally invigorating. Completely shifted my philosophy about productivity.
Because with each entry into the victory log, I felt more confident and more
momentous and more satisfied. The ledger almost became a game to see how many
things I could accomplish in one day, or if I could beat my record from the
previous day. Never underestimate the power of small victories. Where do you keep your visual record of
progress?

Internal creation of inspiring conditions.Waitzkin’sbook about peak performance talks about creating
ripples in your consciousness, little jolts to spur you along, so you are
constantly inspired whether or not external conditions are inspiring. It’s the
smartest way to stay productive. Digging your well before you’re thirsty, as it
were. One technique for doing so is withassociative
triggers. These are the tools that echo your habits of action
and allow you to enter into your creative zone. When I’m composing a new song, for example, I
always spend a few minutes listening to my songwriting playlist first. This
curated collection of inspiring music, to which I add new tracks every week, is
my equivalent of lighting candles or smoking pot or doing shots. Because it’s
theroutine that’s linked to the
inspiring state of mind required for peak creative performance. It’s not
guaranteed to produce a hit single every time, but the associative trigger of
the playlist never fails to create the fertile ground where the moments of
conception are more apt to occur. And so, the
trick to being prolific is to ensure that there’s something going on all the time, not
just the moment you sit down and decide to start working. In the absence of external stimulation, we must be our
own monitor, creating our own internal mechanism for inspiration.What are the associative triggers that allow your art to get
done over and over again?

Make your own music. Harry is an expert forger of famous paintings. People
pay him big money to travel around the world and play cover songs, so to speak.
But his family urges him to use his talent on his own original work. Not just
because it’s, ahem,legal, but
because it’s an opportunity to become a legitimate creator in his own right. A
true artist, not just a painter. Huge difference. Artists follow the muse,
painters follow the numbers. They don’t play cover songs, they make their own
music. When I used to perform music in bars and coffee shops, people would yell
out names of songs or artists they wanted to hear. And that infuriated me.
Because I didn’t come here to swim in the shallow end. I have an agenda, and
people’s crappy childhood songs aren’t part of it. Eventually, though, I became
so frustrated with people’s disinterest in hearing original music, that I
stopped performing in public and went into music hibernation for nearly a
decade. Which I completely regret. I allowed the voices of mediocrity to get
the best of me. I allowed public taste to overwhelm personal expression. Fortunately,
though, hope found its own way back. I started performing in public again. But
this time, I brought the fire.Myfire. I created my own venue, my own permissionless platform, where I could do
whatever I wanted. The music was all expression and zero apology. And nobody
seemed to mind. In fact, they quite liked it. Funny what happens when we give
ourselves permission to make our own music.
When did you start singing in your own voice?