Todd Henry - Die Empty: Unleash Your Best Work Every Day

Die Empty

Alas for those that never sing,

But die with all their music in them.

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, THE VOICELESS

I n February 2011, the artist, designer, and urban planner Candy Chang transformed an abandoned home in her New Orleans neighborhood into a living work of art. She had recently lost someone she cared for deeply, and was reflecting on the meaning of life and what truly mattered to her. She was curious to know if other people had similar thoughts about living with a sense of urgency and purpose so she created an enormous chalkboard running the height and width of one side of the abandoned home. She then stenciled the words Before I Die... at the top of the wall, and created dozens of spaces with the words Before I die, I want to _____________ in grids across the surface. Chang provided the chalk needed to fill in the blanks, and waited in anticipation to see what would happen. Would people participate? Would it be vandalized? Would anyone even notice?

She didnt have to wonder for long. The installation was an immediate hit, as neighborhood residents and passersby filled it with their hopes, dreams, and aspirations. Some of the contributions were impersonal and matter of fact, and some were deeply personal:

Before I die I want to... sing for millions.

Before I die I want to... write a book.

Before I die I want to... understand.

Before I die I want to... tell my mother I love her.

Before I die I want to... be someones cavalry.

Word quickly spread, and visitors began showing up from throughout the region to inscribe their dreams and creative aspirations on the wall. It wasnt long before others were inquiring about creating installations in their own communities. At present, there have been more than one hundred Before I die... installations in cities across the globe, and Chang and her collaborators have developed a tool kit and detailed instructions for spreading the movement.

Why did Changs project take off quickly and become so widely covered by international media? I believe its because the Before I Die... wall resonates with what we both know and fear to be true: we have only a certain amount of time available to us, and how we choose to spend our days is significant. Were also aware that there are things we would like to do and experiences we would like to have before we die, many of which are desires weve suppressed for months or even years. We feel the ticking of the clock, and the accompanying sense that we may be missing our opportunity to make a contribution to the world. However, we often ignore these impulses as a result of the relentless pragmatics of life and work.

Your days are finite. One day, they will run out. As a friend of mine likes to say, You know, the death rate is hovering right around one hundred percent. Many people I know spend their entire life trying to avoid this fact. They fill their lives with frantic activity, bouncing from task to task, and no matter how successfully they perform in their work, as they close up shop for the day they are left with the question Did the work I did today really matter? Others Ive met are incredibly successful at, vested in, and highly compensated for their work, but over time theyve grown stagnant. They sense they have something more to give, but they cant quite put their finger on why theyre stuck in first gear. They have a nagging suspicion that they are capable of contributing moremaybe even being truly brilliant at somethingbut have no road map for unlocking what that contribution might be.

This begs the obvious question: How do you set in motion a course of action that will allow you to unleash your best, most valuable work while you still can? The marketplace is filled with (often simplistic and unhelpful) platitudes about living a life of fulfillment, landing your dream job, and discovering your purpose, but when you are in the midst of the fray it can feel futile to think about anything other than hitting your deadlines and chasing the next promotion. Its easy to get lost, and wake up many years later in a strange land asking yourself, Who am I, how did I get here, and how do I go back?

The only way to avoid this scenario is to instill consistent practices into your life that keep you on a true and steady course. An ounce of preventative discipline today is worth a pound of corrective action later. This book is about cultivating the mind-set and the methods you need to unleash your best work each day, and to increase the odds that, at the end of your life, you will not regret how you spent your days.

In my first book, The Accidental Creative, I recounted a meeting in which a friend asked a strange and unexpected question: What do you think is the most valuable land in the world?

Several people threw out guesses, such as Manhattan, the oil fields of the Middle East, and the gold mines of South Africa, before our friend indicated that we were way off track. He paused for a moment, and said, Youre all wrong. The most valuable land in the world is the graveyard. In the graveyard are buried all of the unwritten novels, never-launched businesses, unreconciled relationships, and all of the other things that people thought, Ill get around to that tomorrow. One day, however, their tomorrows ran out.

That day I went back to my office and I wrote down two words in my notebook and on the wall of my office that have been my primary operating ethic for the last several years: Die Empty. I want to know that if I lay my head down tonight and dont wake up tomorrow, I have emptied myself of whatever creativity is lingering inside, with minimal regrets about how I spent my focus, time, and energy. This doesnt happen by accident; it takes intentional and sustained effort. But I can say with confidence from my own experience and the experiences of others Ive worked with that the effort is well worth it.