This entry from my own journal (not Archibald’s).

An artist needs to be careful about the role of money in his or her life. Do work because you think it will sell to a wide audience, and you must inevitably be in the pretty picture business. On the one hand, we need money to do our work. And we need not only enough to survive, but we need money in reserve so that we can take the time required to create work that is fully developed rather than half-thought through, but salable. We need a reserve so that we can experiment -– pursue ideas that are only vaguely understood but that contain within them a seed. With time, seeds can grow into mighty oaks.

But art done to make money, rather than explore ideas and images on the edge of one’s imagination, is art made to appeal to the status quo. The comfortable. It may be skillfully executed, but if it says nothing new, nothing that expands our consciousness, it is unimportant. The epigraph to James Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man came originally from a description of Daedalus in Metamorphoses.

 . . . et ignotas animum dimittit in artes naturamque nouat.
 And he sets his mind to unknown arts and changes the laws of nature. 

I’ve been sleeping with my bête noire lately, consorting with the enemy –- a book written by people who put, at the center of their lives, the accumulation of wealth. What attracts me is their risk taking. They make their dreams real. The book I’m talking about is 10x is Easier than 2x by Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy. It’s about making money based on your unique ability, taking risks, focusing on what works and having the discipline to ignore the rest.

What follows are rough notes, not exact quotes. The part of the book that interests me has to do with honoring one’s unique ability. On that, I’m all in. That’s a lot of what life, and important creative work, is about. The key notion in the book, and one I aspire to:

If your creative work is not transforming the reality in your art or craft, it is not unique ability. If you are not innovating, breaking rules, and changing boundaries for what reality means in a particular craft or art, it is not work based on your unique ability.

Other thoughts from the book worth a creative’s time to think about:

Your life goal is to develop mastery in the area of your unique ability. There’s nothing more important to dedicate yourself to. It’s your life’s work. The transition is devoting yourself to what you and you alone are uniquely suited to doing.

You’ve got to fully bet on yourself. Committing to your unique ability is the hardest thing you will ever do (yes, I know, that contradicts the title of the book). You are going to have to be all in. Do what no one is doing because you are unique. The right people will recognize its significance. People doing interesting things like to associate with people doing interesting things.

When you are fully committed to developing your uniqueness, you reach outside and above your current skill level. You are always raising the stakes and trying things you’ve never done before.

If it is not transforming you, it is not your unique ability. Committing to your uniqueness takes you to your core and your highest purpose. Each transformation in your work, and the risks you take to get there, will make you into a different person. A bigger person.

Mastery is not the ability to do something well. It is the ability to do something uniquely well. If it is not uninhibited self-expression, something only you could create, it not mastery.

Your unique ability involves the creation of a work that would not exist without you. If you don’t do it, no one else will. Or could.

. . .

So, I ask myself, what is my unique ability?

It is the use of journaling, meditation and art, in combination, in creative work. My painting is good – I’ve sold over 3000 paintings – but I’m nowhere close to being a leading artist, transforming art. However, in the process of reaching for that -- in trying to produce truly unique, important art – striving to paint that glimpsed image right on the cusp of my imagination — my writing on creativity, and on the use of journaling, is stronger.

. . .

I invite you to consider your unique ability, and how to best develop it. What risks to take, what effort to expend. It’s what the gift of life asks of you.

. . .

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