From Zero to Creative Hero in Five Steps (Instagram Reel)

Source Information

• Format: Instagram Reel
• URL: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DXviiHpMpHg/
• Why captured: the recommendations sit on two books I haven’t read yet (Forsyth’s The Elements of Eloquence and Toye’s Rhetoric: A Very Short Introduction). Saving the reel here as a reading prompt; deriving atomic notes only makes sense after reading the source material the reel itself is pointing at.

The five steps (paraphrased)

1. Accept that your taste is worse than many people’s. Some have a better eye than you do. Take that as fact, not an insult.
2. Accept that your taste is also better than many people’s. Then go figure out who is above you. The tell of someone with good taste is that they can articulate why something is good — and they reach for references outside their own sphere.
3. Learn to communicate your thoughts. The reel recommends two short books on rhetoric:
   • The Elements of Eloquence — Mark Forsyth
   • Rhetoric: A Very Short Introduction — Richard Toye
4. Grind. Work harder than the competition. Quantity becomes quality at the volumes good work requires.
5. Learn to accept yourself. Hardest of the five. The pitch: “you kick the world’s ass when you do you, because a creative hero gets hired to be him, not to be someone else.”

To read

Both books are on the to-read list as a result of this. Once read, the framework above is worth revisiting and the parts that hold up can become atomic notes.

• The Elements of Eloquence — Mark Forsyth
• Rhetoric: A Very Short Introduction — Richard Toye

Source: Instagram reel