The Art of the Start

True confession: starting this podcast was intimidating. Though I’ve been producing media of various stripes for quite some time, I’ve never hosted. And there were a lot of moving parts - guests to line up, music to choose, books to read, scripts to write. Not to mention the fact that we had to make this work EVERY day, and hopefully live up to the standard set by our weekly sister podcast, The Next Big Idea.

Luckily, I had a lot of help from a very talented team and supportive collaborators at the LinkedIn Podcast Network. But starting anything is hard, especially if you’re doing it on your own, and I’ve got a box filled with unpitched TV proposals and half-drafted screenplays to prove it.

That’s why I knew I wanted to interview author and entrepreneur Becky Blades about her new book Start More Than You Can Finish: A Creative Permission Slip to Unleash Your Best Ideas. It’s all about dispelling the myth that only starving artists and mad geniuses can be creative. Anyone can be creative. Anyone can put amazing, original work out into the world. Even you. Even me.?

The problem, however, is that many of us approach creativity all wrong. We focus on the end result and quickly become overwhelmed, telling ourselves discouraging things like “I’ll never be able to pull this off.” Then we throw in the towel before we’ve even stepped into the ring.

Becky wants to change that. She wants you to forget about the finish and just get started. On anything. A screenplay, a business plan, a social event. And she’s got a system that makes starting a cinch.

Happy listening!

—Michael

1. Not Finished Is Not Failure (10min)

?? If we believe not finishing as we envisioned is failure, we might not start.

Doing is more important than being done. That’s the provocative argument at the heart of Becky’s book Start More Than You Can Finish. She says you’ll be amazed by what you can accomplish if you stop worrying about the finish and just get started.

2. Starting Is a Skill and a Muscle (10min)

?? Starting is a process with four sometimes indiscernible parts: imagining, thinking, deciding, and acting.

You have an idea. Great! Now what? In this episode, Becky shares her four-part process for getting started.

3. The First Step Is a Swag Bag (9min)

?? When we trust the power of the start, we get a swag bag of insight, clarity, confidence, courage, and momentum.?

If you’ve taken Becky's advice to imagine more, think less, decide to decide, and act fast, then you're ready to get your swag bag. That's what she calls the mood-boosting chemicals like dopamine and serotonin that flood over us when we start an exciting new project.

4. The Creative Process Is in Charge (7min)

?? The creative process is iteration, adding layers… it’s rounds of discovery, reexamination, and revision.

We tend to think of the creative process as a straight line. You start something, make continual forward progress, and then you’re finished. But Becky says that’s not really how creativity works at all. It’s iterative, experimental. Today, she shares an entirely new paradigm for making things.

5. Acting On Our Ideas Is the Best of Who We Are (8min)

?? We are not the sum of our missed opportunities or the unfinished projects. We are the sum of our starts.

In the final installment of her master class, Becky zooms out and reminds us that what matters in life isn’t what you finish: it’s what you start.

Next Week on The Next Big Idea Daily

Marc Schulz is a Professor of Psychology and Director of Data Science at Bryn Mawr College, and the associate director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development.

He’ll be on the show to discuss his new book, The Good Life: Lessons from the World’s Longest Scientific Study of Happiness, which he co-authored with Robert Waldinger.

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