The Boss of You

Confession: I don’t read a lot of “artist” books. I’m a designer, and a sometime musician, but I don’t really identify with the “artist” thing for some reason — probably because I don’t draw well and I don’t wake up in the dead of night with an insatiable urge to write songs or poems, paint paintings, or choreograph dances.

But I loooooove this book, whose full title is The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life. I love it because it is about a bunch of stuff I care deeply about, like: Finding your voice. Trying new things. Learning discipline. Respecting the value of your precious, short life. Finding the proverbial room of one’s own. Handling criticism. Confronting failure.

Notice how all this stuff is relevant not only to artists, but also to entrepreneurs? Yeah. ‘Swhy I like it so much. Tharp’s lessons have depth and breadth. My brother, a professional musician, loves this book, but I heard about it from a fellow business owner.

This book is as essential to practical, logical, linear left-brain folks as it is to fluid, intuitive, artistic right-brainers. The latter need it because of the “habit” part of the title: Tharp is all about creating routines that allow her the time & space necessary to create works of art. But the rest of us need the stuff that’s along the “what are you going to do with your one wild and precious life?” side of things, because otherwise we risk getting lost in the weeds of pragmatism and losing sight of the rich possibilities of living a creative life.

One more cool thing about The Creative Habit: It’s full of exercises both brilliant and kooky. One example: Tharp suggests you come up with a stage name for yourself, and that you choose something you would like to be named if you had the opportunity to select your own birth name. This exercise nearly killed me, so difficult is it for me to overcome my attachment to the status quo. But holy cow was it an eye-opener; I learned a lot about myself just by trying.

Highly recommended. I suggest you buy at least three copies, so you have spares to give away.