Scott Perry - The Stoic Creative Handbook: Struggling Creatives Are Driven By Passion. Thriving Artists Are Driven By Purpose.

The Work You Get to Do

Were born with the capacity for reason, a creative instinct, and a social nature. This combination of characteristics differentiates us from all other living things. Its also the source of your limitless potential. Potential some strive to develop and realize through work that matters.

Work that matters is not the kind of work you have to do. Its the work you get to do.

Are you ready to do the work that youre meant to do? Not the work you were born for. You werent born with or for any one purpose. The work youre meant to do now begins with identifying where you are, where you want to be, and then step into whats next.

Its that simple. But simple isnt easy.
There are challenges coming. Striving comes with its share of stress and anxiety. However, so does leaving potential unrealized and or on the table. And ignoring your excellence comes with additional pain and even anguish that people like us just cant bear.

Life is just a pilgrimage from the womb to the tomb. Cornel West

We all know where your journey ultimately ends. Whatever significance, legacy, or difference you make with the time you have, depends on what you do in here and now.

Starting Where You Are

You may have picked up this handbook because a wee small voice in your head whispers, Is this all there is to life? Is this all Im meant for?

The Stoic Creative shares a process for developing and employing your potential through meaningful work. Its helped many achieve excellence in endeavors that matter.

This handbook promises you transformation. A bold statement, but if you do the work, that will be your experience. Metamorphosis isnt for everyone, but people like us just cant ignore that wee small voice.

The Stoic Creative introduces concepts and tools and then supplies exercises to put them into action. Thats where the magic is, in the application.

Reading this handbook will not change a thing. Insight is useless until you take action.

You Already Possess All You Need

If you want different outcomes, you need to build new perceptions, aspirations, and habits. New outcomes require adopting a mindset that is curious and open and a posture that is courageous and generous.

This handbook is built on assertions. Assertions arent answers or declarations of truth. Theyre statements held to be true based on observation and evidence. They can be argued and disagreed with. Thats the point. Assertions are conversation starters intended to poke at assumptions that no longer work. Assertions create change, even when proven wrong. Assertions arent about being right; theyre about getting to more right and arriving closer to truth.

Before You Start

If youre ready to stop struggling and start thriving while doing more meaningful work, make a vow. Promise someone that you trust, respect, and love that youre going to read this handbook and complete the exercises. Pledging to another is the most effective first step for developing new habits and practices.
The next step for progressing toward your potential is to engage in a daily micro-habit. Incorporate new ideas and techniques into a small and specific daily task. Thats what the exercises in this handbook are designed for, developing new default settings and rituals.

Finally, cement the new habit you are developing, by practicing it mindfully. No checking the box. Complete the exercises with intention .
Some exercises may make you squeamish, uncomfortable, and possibly scared. That indicates that youre doing just what you need. Be courageous. Continue to engage with this process. Thats how transformation happens. Its not easy, but its right.

Striving to achieve your potential is not something you have to do. Its something you get to do. People like us do things like this.

What ought to be done must be learned from one who does it - Seneca

Are You A Creative?

In the USA, only about 50% of people believe they are creative and 75% of them do not feel they are living up to their creative potential. The percentages in other countries are even less. How sad that so many do not identify with this most basic of human impulses. The Stoic Creative seeks to not only help you identify as a creative but encourage you to level up to artistry in an endeavor in which you seek excellence.

We all have unrealized potential. Lots of unrealized potential! Work that matters to us and is meaningful to others can be developed more intentionally and deliver more impact. We can all do more and better with what we already possess.

This is revealed in my experience and in that of those with whom Ive shared and tested the ideas and exercises in this handbook. Ill share a few examples from my work and experience as a guitar teacher and performing musician.

Ive taught hundreds of students ages 5 to 75 to play the guitar. Many of them came to me after a failed first attempt, often with an awful teacher. This experience left them believing theyd never be good enough to play music at all, let alone with or for others. Within a few weeks of my guidance, encouragement, and support, they were happily playing and singing a few of their favorite tunes and doing so with and for friends and family and eventually for fans.

Ive personally experienced the power of purposeful striving to in my music career. At age 45, I took up learning to play jazz guitar. The learning curve was steep. My first teachers were of the awful variety. I learned quite a bit on my own and eventually found a good teacher, but it was still tough sledding. By continuously and intentionally developing my craft, and delivering my work to the right people, I was able to get the feedback I needed to improve, iterate, and refine my skills. Now in my 50s, I share stages with some of the best jazz guitarists on the planet like Frank Vignola, Tommy Emmanuel, and Martin Taylor.

These are examples based on my professional experience, but Ive experienced the same improvement in my roles as a husband, father, and friend by applying the principles and practices laid out in this handbook. You can employ the lessons shared in these pages to any endeavor in which youre ready to lean into and level up.

This handbook wakes you up to the idea that you can do much more with the talents you already possess. I hope to get under your skin and drive you to act. This handbook lays out a step-by-step process to dial in the motivation and intention of your work and to begin delivering it to the right people. Along the way, it provides time-tested principles and practices and those of contemporary mentors.

Putting yourself out there can be frightening, so youll learn how to handle fear. Youll reveal what should be driving your work and why. Youll drill down on your core values and talents and connect you to the scene that needs you. Finally, youll learn to develop the mindset of a courageous creative and the posture of a thriving artist going forward.

By the end of this handbook, youll have learned and practiced what you need to experience more flourishing in a meaningful endeavor and help others do the same.