Creating - Daniel Bourke

cup of tea and typewriter on small wooden table on balcony with view of trees and water

Typewriting

Someone special got me a typewriter recently. I said it once a couple of months ago, I'd like to get a typewriter. And they listened and surprised me on my birthday. I'm a big fan. The post below came off the press the other day. Only a single edit or

Decision Making

Betting on yourself

Would you take a bet you could never lose?

Daniel Bourke reading an excerpt of Charlie Walks on the end of a rock pier by the water

Birthday

28 and something ideas for 28 and something years

A series of life updates and a collection of unsolicited advice on wealth, health, love and life collected over my 27th year.

Creating

The amateur's advantage

An amateur pursues a craft for the love of it. They're armed with the superpower of not requiring the approval of others.

Creating

Create beauty at all costs

The world can never have enough beauty.

Creating

Multiply yourself

40,049 students from 164 countries around the world and counting.

Decision Making

How fast is your OODA loop?

Originally developed for Air Force combat, the OODA loop (observe, orient, decide, act) can be applied in any battle. Even when the opponent is oneself.

Art

Find your art and let it kill you

Been getting distracted. Trivial things getting in the way. String enough of those together and that's when people start to say "where did the time go?" I’ll tell you where it didn’t go, it didn’t go towards your craft. It didn’t go towards practicing. It didn’

Learning

Curiosity is a skill

If anyone takes away your curiosity or eagerness for life, avoid them. Be as curious as you want about anything and everything. Curiousity is a skill which peaks in childhood and slowly dies off. But it doesn’t have to. Seeing curiosity as a skill means you can practice it.

Newsletter

Filtering out what matters

What do you have without your health? Five questions to ask yourself everyday. The optionality of life. Using time and boredom to guide your decisions.

Business

Building a business from a bedroom, $98,130 and 11-months in

Lessons learned sleeping 4 ft. from my office.

Make

No magic pill

Drugs, tried them. Sex, had it plenty of times. Working hard towards a goal and finishing it, starting from zero and improving at a skill, buying things, making art, dancing, moving, travelling, meditating, earning more than you can spend in a day, done them all. You might be searching for

Creating

The eternal pursuit of unhappiness

There’s a disease you might contract. You’ll know when you get it. What is it? It’s not really a disease. It’s an endless pursuit. Which is close enough. When you leap. When you take the jump to pursue a craft, you sign up for an endless

Creating

Copy until you have your own style

When you start your creative work will suck. Why? Because you won’t have your own style yet. And that’s okay. What you can do is copy others until you do. Take the works which impress you most and replicate them. You can even start to add your own

Creating

Drip by drip

How to earn $80 million in 40 seconds.

Creating

Who’s going to take responsibility?

With opportunity comes responsibility. You can’t have the benefits of opportunity without the efforts of responsibility. The internet has given you the opportunity to create things at little to no costs. Writing is basically free. But it’s your responsibility to sit down and get the words out. A

Creating

Make your income separate from your real thing

A real way to stress test your side project, your real thing, the thing you work on and it doesn’t seem like work is to make an income separate to it. The test is to show whether or not you’d actually keep going with it despite having no

Getting Started

“I’m not sure where to start”

We were sitting at the dinner table and my little brother, Sam, starts speaking. He says he’s not sure where to start. Then he keeps going. “I’m not sure where to start, so I’m just making whatever I can think of.” I tell him. “That’s the

Writing

Every day for a year

When you make it visual, you’ve got no choice. You can see it. It’s right there. You know if you miss it, the chain will break. It’s about to be a new year. And that’s exciting. Maybe tomorrow is a good day to start something. Something

Creating

Hits and misses

Dave and I were sitting at the cafe the other day. Talking about the cadence of putting out work. Social media makes it look like something needs to come out every day. Multiple times per day if you can. Artists, Kanye West, Drake, some of our favourites, put out an

Getting Started

Talent not required

It’s easy to palm it off on natural ability. “He’s a natural... that’s why he can do it.” “She’s so talented, I could never do that.” But where did they start? Does a piano player get born with the ability to play piano? Does a programmer

Creating

The project needs to drive you forward

In the beginning, your energy will drive you forward. You’ll start a new project with excitement, the quick wins will make you want to keep going. After a while, when your energy runs lows, the project itself will have to bring you forward. Discipline works, will power works, you

Projects

Release Frequently and Update or Hold Back & Wait?

An internal debate I’ve been having with myself. If you’re working on a longer-term project, should you release frequently and update as required, have the market drive development. Or should you hold it back, wait until there’s a finished version and put it out in one go.

Creating

Your first 100

If you’ve never created anything, you might be trapped in a mental prison. In year 8, my art teacher told me my drawing was bad. So I stopped drawing. In year 12, my English teacher said my writing was too repetitive and didn’t have enough structure. So I

Life and Living

I've never been so excited

Imagine growing up watching a television show and then getting to meet your favourite character. You get there and they realise how excited you are. They know what you're thinking. They say, "you've been waiting for this haven't you?". You say, "yes, I'm a very big fan, I've never been