Each Friday, I send advice, ideas, stories and tips to 25K creative people like you. Author of 13 best-selling books on creativity. Founder of Sketchbook Skool w 50k+ students
🥰 Kinda like being in love
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When people undergo what, for lack of a less awkward term, I’ll call a “creative reawakening,” they often experience a surge of synchronicity. Serendipity abounds. Opportunities bounce into their laps. Like-minded people just show up. Connections are forged, sparks fly, light blink on. Life gets spicy. Some attribute this to a greater power: “God loves those who create.” Maybe so. I have a more down-to-earth hypothesis. When you allow yourself to be creative, to make things, to smell roses, see colors, hear symphonies, dance fandangos — your antennas rise. You start to scan through new stations, to retune. Instead of trudging in your rut, you look up and see stars and bluebirds. It’s kinda like being in love. In love with life. With the world. With yourself. The world is always full of opportunity, of beauty, of possibilities, of stimulus, and pots of gold. When you finally start to look around, to see clearly, to live in the Now and dump your baggage, you can’t help but notice. When you notice the world, you notice it notices you. You open up to people who you would normally ignore, and they open up to you, revealing how much they are like you and how much they like you too. You discover new pages of the menu. You hear lyrics to songs you used to fast forward. You read poems carved in monuments. You open your fortune cookies. Small wonder the world suddenly seems to be flowing your way. It always did — but perhaps you were too busy, head down, paddling upstream to notice. Your pal, Danny |
Danny Gregory: I help you make art again
Each Friday, I send advice, ideas, stories and tips to 25K creative people like you. Author of 13 best-selling books on creativity. Founder of Sketchbook Skool w 50k+ students
For thirty years, my job was to kick ass. I worked in advertising, which meant I was in a constant state of competition. Every meeting, every pitch, every campaign was about being the sharpest, the fastest, the most convincing voice in the room. I had to serve up hot ideas on demand, solve problems overnight, and make my work eclipse whatever and whoever came before. I was good at it. Good enough to win cash and prizes, and to stay in the ring for years. Once, I was hired to freelance for...
I plan to read more literary novels. But sometimes I end up blowing through a cheesy thriller that I grabbed at the library. JJ buys kale to make healthy salads, and then we find ourselves eating frozen pizza on the couch. I add Kurosawa and Bergman movies to my Netflix list, but I also rewatch the same episode of Seinfeld for the fifth time because it makes me laugh, and I already know how it ends. I like to think I have standards. I know what "good" is, or at least I have some idea. But I’m...
Lately, I’ve been spending time with a new online tool called Cosmos. It’s a way to collect and curate visual inspiration—kind of like Pinterest, but without the ads, algorithms, and kitchen makeovers. What sets Cosmos apart is its focus: it’s filled with images curated by designers, illustrators, and artists. Real people with real taste. And the quality of what they’ve gathered is next level. I recommend you try it, but that’s not the point of this essay. As I meandered through the site, I...