The Art of Finishing Things

Today a simple message around “The Art of Finishing Things“, about getting it out to the public when it is good, not perfect.

I feel inspired to tell this story today in the form of connecting the dots, thanks to my past #WhatComesNextLive guest Rob Poynton for recommending the weekly(“ish”) newsletter of Nick Parker, “That Explains Things“, which is full of nuggets, a numbered list that connects the dots in some form or other from one nugget to the next.

Enjoy.

In a recent newsletter from Nick, he recommended the film “My Octopus Teacher“, so that is added to my winter lockdown list on Netflix. He also guided me to the superb video talk below from Jack Conté, which Nick described as being about “the difference between starting and finishing things”.

This line and Jack’s video sparked so many thoughts in me, so, before the video, let me connect the dots, a little like the style of numbered bullet points Nick Parker uses in his newsletter.

1. In 2021 Seth Godin wrote a blog called “this might work” where he launched his latest (and most personal) book “The Icarus Deception” via Kickstarter. I went “all in” on the Kickstarter, then, when the books arrived about six months later, I ran book reading evenings around it, which also coincided with a fast period of growth in my business. I had no idea how to run a book evening, I just did it, I knew “this might work”
2. One of the core essentials of the book and Seth’s thinking is to “ship” your art”, to “Be an Artist and make art“.
3. In 2017, Seth wrote in a daily blog that he calculated he’d written over 10,000 daily blogs in a row, more than 25 years. In that moment, I committed to write every day and am beyond 1,000 daily posts in a row.
4. In amongst those daily posts, some have been written in a minute or two, some taken hours, some taken weeks or months to emerge.
5. Way back in my early months, I wrote my first blog referencing the Icarus Deception. Over time, and as I imagine happens when you commit to writing every day and doing it for years on end, I’ve come back to the themes in the book often, from different directions each time.
6. One muse for me is Amanda Palmer, the queen of Patreon (with nearly 15,000 patrons). Blogs I’ve written inspired by her include: “Tell People what you Want“, “Asking is about Connecting“, “Life in Full Colour – Cry, Heart, But Never Break” and “from Patron to Patreon“.
7. I was introduced to Amanda Palmer by Rosie von Lila, who I met at Modern Elder Academy through us being mutual friends of Chip Conley.
8. Amanda has always shipped her art, connected, shared who she is, openly abundantly. Now, to connect the dots into a (sort of) circle, in that 2012 Seth Godin blog, where he shared he had decided to publish with Kickstarter, he wrote “Amanda Palmer is our hero“, with that link going to her 2011 Kickstarter that raised over $1m.
9. Amanda then moved onto Patreon, where she currently ranks 15th among all Patreons, as she puts it “creating with no intermission”.
10. Who is Jack Conté? He is a musician ranking in the top 100 of Patreon creators. Oh, and he also created Patreon, a company with an estimated value in 2020 of over $1bn.
11. The title of this blog, “The Art of Finishing Things”, is once again inspired by Amanda Palmer, who, beyond her music and her Patreon army of loyal followers, is best known for her TED talk: “The Art of Asking”.
12. Finally, look back to the quote at the top and who said it. One more dot you can connect for yourself after having read this post 😉

Like Nick Parker, I hope you find one or two nuggets in this post. Now, over to you, Jack Conté. For me, it is “doing only what matters, then stopping” and “work to publish”.