You Must Create

A letter to anyone figuring out what's next

I was cleaning out my Mom and Dad's house and I found a story I wrote in second grade about our made-up Scottish ancestor coming over on the boat to the US. Yes, he was drawn with a silly little kilt. Yes, there was terrible dialogue. The whole story was ridiculous, but honestly, not half bad for a second-grader.

More importantly, it was mine. And if I squint hard enough, I can see the throughline leading from that silly little story from a second grader who thought he was funny and trace it all the way to me sitting in this cafe in DC writing a newsletter for you all.

That throughline matters because most of us lose it somewhere along the way. We stop asking “What do I want to make?” and start asking “What am I supposed to do?

In some ways, we are fortunate. Because the world does hand you a recipe: Focus on the job, the salary, the promotion. The house, the marriage, the kids.

None of these things are bad. Many of them are good. But the list is incomplete. There's something missing from this formula, something essential that no career counselor and only a great executive coach will tell you about.

You must create.

I don't mean you need to become a professional artist or quit your day job to write the great American novel. I mean you need to make space in your life, starting today, for the act of bringing something into existence that wasn't there before.

Why Creation Is Your Best Medicine

Right now, you’re trying to figure out how to matter. Every human being is. The difference is that most people accept someone else’s definition of mattering: external validation, recognition, the approval of strangers who will forget about you the moment you step down from whatever podium you’ve climbed.

I know I did.

Creation offers you something different. It is a rebellion against a transactional world that says your worth is measured by your output, your salary, your productivity metrics. When you create, whether through writing, painting, music, or whatever calls to you, you’re saying “this matters because I made it, not because someone else validates it.”

You went from ‘zero to one’, from nothing to something, from absence to existence. Just because. I want you to believe that matters.

This is medicine for a life that will otherwise be spent chasing achievements that never satisfy. The promotion that feels hollow within minutes of receiving it. The constant question of “what’s next?” that never gets answered. The Sunday night dread that settles in no matter how “successful” you become.

The act of creating, of reaching within and expressing something authentic, tunes you into your own voice. Not what you think people want to hear. Not what gets the most likes. What YOU have to say. That authentic voice becomes your compass for every other decision you make.

This is how you stop optimizing for someone else’s definition of success and start building toward your own.

How to Find What Wants to Emerge Through You

"But Danny," you might say, "I don't know what I have to create. I don't know what I have to say."

That's exactly why you have to start.

You don't discover what you have to say by thinking about it in your head. You discover what to create through the process of creating. The act of reaching within, of wrestling with your thoughts and ideas, of expressing something, anything, is how you tune into your authentic voice.

Look Backward: The clues from your past

There are clues everywhere about what you are called to create. You may not be cleaning out your parents house, but signals will call to you from your past if you pay attention.

• When did you lose track of time as a kid?

• What made you light up?

• What did you love doing before anyone told you whether you were "good" at it?

Look backward at those moments. Look forward to who you want to be on your deathbed. Meet in the middle from both directions to harness those signs about what wants to emerge through you right now.

If all else fails, remember a young Mike Myers on SNL for a deep cut reference.

Look for Flow: When time disappears, pay attention

As you experiment, you’re looking for flow states, moments when time disappears, when you're so immersed in what you're doing that the rest of the world fades away. That's an important signal.

It might not be what you expect. My friend found it drawing Pokemon during our Artist's Way challenge. For me, it's writing in cafes on Saturday mornings, coffee in hand, trying to articulate an idea that feels important.

The key is imperfect play and experimentation. Try different things. Write morning pages. Take an art class. Learn an instrument. Go on "artist dates," an idea from author Julia Cameron, as dedicated time just for creative exploration, no outcome required.

When you find something that creates that sense of being "plugged into the source," pay attention. That's a unique frequency of ‘resonance’ about something you deeply care about, believe in, or identify and it’s worth noticing.

Permission to Create Badly (And Privately)

Let me give you permission for something…you can create and never show it to anybody.

You can write and never publish it.
You can paint and never hang it on a wall.
You can make music and never perform it.

This isn't about becoming Instagram-famous or building a personal brand (although it can be if that’s your bag, baby. +10 to me for a second Mike Myers reference).

What this is about, is the inherent value of the creative act itself. It's about having time in your day that isn't transactional, isn't measured, isn't optimized for productivity.

You need that in your life. We all do.

So much of our lives is about trading your time and energy for outcomes. That’s fine. It has it’s place and I have neither the time nor the inclination to engage you, dear reader, in anti-capitalist screed right now.

But there must be a space for creation. Because creation gets to be different. It gets to be the space where you rebel, in small or big ways, against machine minds, metal hearts, and a message that says only productive work makes you worthy.

You don't have to be "good enough." Who's holding you accountable for that anyway? And even if you never make money from it, even if you never become professional-level, isn't it enough, in this one precious life you have, to simply enjoy doing it?

The Social Media Trap (And How to Escape It)

Popularity is a survival signal. Wealth is a signal of prosperity. These aren't bad things, but they're incomplete. If you only listen to what gets rewarded online, you're optimizing for someone else's definition of success, not your own. Social media metrics appeal to our survival instincts, not our deepest selves.

Social media has actually democratized creation in amazing ways—you can find your people, no matter how niche your interests. Someone is writing about medieval women's literacy in a small part of France, and they've found their community. But you have to be intentional about not letting the metrics hijack your deeper motivations.

The practice is this: look up occasionally to check your direction to see ‘is this resonating with people? Is this helping?’ Then focus back on your feet. Back to the work. Back to what you have to say. Back to expressing it more beautifully, more truthfully, more authentically.

If Not Now, When? (Spoiler: Never)

"But I need to focus on practical things," you might say. "I need to get a job, pay rent, be responsible."

When will you have time for this if not now? When you have more bills? A family? Kids? When your job becomes more demanding?

If you don't create space for yourself (and this is an expression of caring and attention to yourself) the world will not create it for you. It will not be handed to you out of the blue.

This is how you get off somebody else's path and start walking your own. Everyone has time for some version of this. It doesn't have to be hours every day. It can be an hour on weekend mornings. It can be thirty minutes before work. It can be whatever you can carve out consistently.

But you have to carve it out. Because this is how you get closer to your own measure of what a successful life looks like that includes time for creation, for expression, for bringing forward what's uniquely yours.

Five Years From Now

Five years from now, wherever you are, I hope you'll have a practice of creativity that energizes rather than depletes you, that connects you to that well of authenticity more often.

I hope you'll know the feeling of being "plugged into the source," of creating something that expresses your unique way of seeing the world. Not because it will make you famous or wealthy or impressive to others, but because it will make you more fully yourself (bad teeth and all, good god he’s done it again).

This is rebellion against a culture that wants to reduce you to your resume. This is medicine for a world that will constantly try to tell you what success should look like. This is how you tune into what you actually care about, what you have to say, what you want to express and definitively not what you think others want to hear.

So start somewhere. Start today. Create the space, however small. Listen for what wants to emerge through you. Trust that you have something unique to offer, even if you don't know what it is yet.

You must create, not because the world demands it, but because something in you does.

Grr Baby,

Danny

P.S. Let me know what you’re committed to creating in the comments. No step is too small.