I can make any dragon.

My 10 year old niece Maddie wanted to start a savings account. She texted me to talk through how she could start a "company" to earn some money. She loves drawing dragons and like a skilled corporate raider, saw an unserved market of people who craved custom dragon artwork.?

Her site launched on a Thursday night and by the next day she had 16 orders. My role in the organization is to communicate order to her. I picked one from the backlog and asked if she could do it.

"I can make any dragon" is my new mantra in the face of a creative problem. The utter disbelief that any dragon might be unmakeable was inspiring.

I'm not a terribly confident creative writer and I'll do just about anything to distract myself from writing. Just last night I made patatas bravas while avoiding writing this very newsletter.

I'd never made them before and had no reason to make them last night. Yet I found myself huddled over a frying pan at 8:00pm, dunking wave after wave of potatoes (note: huddling over a pan while essentially deep-frying potatoes is a bad idea - ask my eyebrows).

But once the potatoes were done and the kitchen was cleaned, it was time to make my dragon. As I'm writing this, I'm reminding myself that I can make any dragon. You're reading the proof that I made this one.

The lesson is one of perspective. Could Maddie draw dragons if she didn't believe she could? Yes, I've seen them and know it's possible.?

But would she draw dragons if she didn't believe she could? No. She probably wouldn't. And she definitely wouldn't be selling them.

If you've got an idea or project where you don't feel like you're making any progress I've got a question for you. Do you actually believe you can do it?

If you do, great, you've just wasted a few minutes reading this. Hopefully something else I send will be helpful.

But if you don't believe you can, here's the followup. Do you have some evidence that you can? I'm going to go out on a limb and guess you do - even if that evidence is just curiosity about the subject.

Now you've got to make a choice, do you believe your fear telling you you can't make the dragon, or the evidence you can?

Like Chico Marx said, "Who ya gonna believe? Me or your OWN eyes?"

If you like these emails and want help me grow, sharing a snippet you found interesting on social media with a link back to the newsletter is the most helpful thing you could do. Feel free to @clickpop on most platforms if you do.

Reply to let me know if you think I'm wrong. I would sincerely love to hear from you.

Later, homefries.

Chris