The magic is in the work
At every single company I’ve founded or been part of, there’s always been a struggle to start, and a struggle to scale.
The struggle to start is writing the first cold email, asking for the first dollar, figuring out the first plan for what to build. It’s foreseeing the inevitable pain ahead: the innumerable rejections, the posts that fall flat, the graveyards of dead products — that all of these failures will cost the same amount of integrity, willpower, and effort as the one that finally succeeds — if “that one” ever comes.
It’s seeing this mountain of failure that snaps would-be artists and entrepreneurs to their senses, and sends them running the other way. It feels easier to turn around, to procrastinate, or to abandon the path entirely, because it is.
The struggle to scale then, is seeing the mountain, and trudging ahead. You’ve made your first post, you’ve told all of your friends, you’ve celebrated the both past and the future in the same farewell party. But now the sendoff is complete, the drunkenness of new is gone, and the perils of the journey are abundantly clear. The struggle to scale is the struggle to continue.
It’s a dull pain, sore feet, burnt backs from the long and arduous journey. It’s the pain that comes from getting up on Monday after you’ve worked on Sunday. It is waking up early for a shoot, filming after an exhausting week of flights, and still sending emails late into the night. It is being overworked and underpaid, rowing as fast as you can while thinking: When will this thing finally work on its own? When will it all get easier?
One of my favorite artists, Daniel Arsham talks about what separates amateur artists from professional ones. He says amateur artists wait around for inspiration; professional artists are disciplined.
Professional artists show up every day, from 9 to 7, and they work. Amateur artists go out to be a part of the scene. Professional artists reinvest their time and money into studio, into the work.
Professional artists may not look like athletes, but they behave like ones. Athletes respect the work.
It doesn’t feel like it now, but I believe in doing good work. I think work operates on its own time, that it work becomes better and better until it becomes “good”. My painting teacher at FIT said to me “Art is never finished” and in the same breath “just paint something”.
The muse shows up when it wants to, but the work needs to get done if you ever want to meet her.
The magic is in the work.
Keep working.
