Blog | Justin Mulvaney

Creativity comes in waves. There are times when we full unstoppable and times when we feel we can’t go on. There are moments where we feel inspired and moments where we can’t work at all. Between our initial bout of inspiration and the thrill of completion there’s a valley seeking to beat us. This is the point where quitting is most likely.

When we hit the trough, it’s important to remember that, 1. The work is worth it and 2. Troughs are inevitably followed by peaks. Acknowledge that there will be troughs and learn to ride the wave.

Whether it be nationality, race, heritage, or gender, there are so many benefits that come from being proud of our backgrounds. These identities create a sense of community, confidence, and connection that brings meaning and purpose to our lives. When we’re proud of a community that we came from we’re constantly driven to make it better, creating a virtuous circle of elevated meaning and pride within it. Even when we disagree on what exactly better is it’s because we care, and with this caring comes a lot of good things.

Unfortunately, pride is a double-edged sword. Problems begin when it leads us to build borders around our community, to adopt an “Us vs. Them” mentality. We start to push others out. We put those outside of our community down. We lose the ability to appreciate other ways of life. When we become so obsessed with proving that we’re better than them, we lose sight of trying to be better than who we were yesterday.

We can and should celebrate our nationality, race, heritage, and gender, but be wary of pitting it up against some group of “others“. A New Yorker is also a North Easterner who is also an American. An Americans is a Westerner, and all of the above are united under the banner of humanity. The concept of identifying as a human is so fundamental that it feels foreign. There’s no group of “others” to unite ourselves against. It doesn’t feel like some special group despite it most definitely being so. We fail to consider that being human is something we all have in common, with tens of thousands of year of history (far more than any single culture or heritage). We fail to consider that the “other” is the human struggle that we all face on a daily basis.

We have special days to celebrate nationality, culture, and heritage. Let’s not forget to make time to unite and celebrate our humanity, or better yet, let it pervade in our day-to-day lives.

Means so much more than honing your craft and acquiring new skills.

One sign of a lifelong learner: a willingness to have their concept of the-way-the-world-is-and-ought-to-be changed.

It’s easy to live life for the euphoric high points. Weekend getaways, summer nights, debaucherous occasions with friends. They make us feel alive.

Some people mistake these moments for “life”, for the point of it all. They work to manufacture this euphoria at all costs. They live their days in anticipation of the next high.

Inevitably, life regresses to the mean. We return to the moments in between. In these moments, truth descends upon us. We can live life to manufacture the high points, or we can focus on leading a life where the moments in between are fulfilling and rich. I’m of the opinion that, if we live our life for the moments in between, the highs are more authentic and beautiful too.

Speaking up is tough. Regardless of if we’re up against a group consensus, a lone wolf with their mind made up, or an entire institution, it feels pointless to be the lone objector. Why speak up when it might be more trouble than it’s worth?

Before deciding on a course of action, it’s important to consider why we want to object. Are we feeling self-righteous, indignant, or even childish? Do we simply crave attention which, once given, we’ll be satisfied with and recede into the fray? Or is it because we care? Do we want to speak out because we crave change, a movement toward something better?

It’s obvious that our intent matters. The trouble is, it’s hard to interpret what our true motivations are, especially when we’re frustrated. Do we struggle to contain our emotion because we care so much, or because our inner child feels a tantrum coming on?

First, check your intent. Dig deep. If it’s a temper tantrum, walk away. If it’s not though, if you realize that you sincerely care about what’s happening, you face a decision: recede into apathy, or step up and speak out.

Yes it’s hard. Yes it might be more trouble than it’s worth. But understand that healthy conflict is essential to life, and that with integrity of emotion, things will work out. If not, at least you’ll go out caring.

Lately, there have been a seemingly insurmountable number of fires to put out in my life. Whenever one shows up, I have a tendency to blindly react, to drop everything I’m doing and put it out. While this works for small inconveniences, life inevitably hits with bigger fires, to the point where blind reactivity fails miserably.

It seems counterintuitive, but when shit really hits the fan we need to step back and plan our attack. Rather than reacting as quickly as possible, we need to allow the fires to temporarily grow while we figure out how to put them out. I’ve found there are two advantages to this:

Next time life hands you a fire, take a minute to breathe. It’s probably not worth the worry anyway.

Trying something a little different today…

I tend to stray away from recommending people read, watch, or listen to anything (we all have enough of that in our lives), but when you find something that impacts you so deeply you can’t imagine your life without it, you share. Time to put my hypocrite pants on.

Around a month and a half ago, I took a dive into Creative Live’s 30 days of Genius. I expected it to be a waste of my time. I finished it inspired and with my ass in gear.

What it is: Over the course of 30 days the founder of Creative Live, Chase Jarvis, interviews 30 brilliant individuals (a few of said people: Marc Cuban, Arianna Huffington, Sir Mix-A-Lot). Interviews range from half an hour to an hour and half.

Yea, it’s a lot. While I think there’s a benefit to watching them all (you never know which will speak to you personally), these are my 3 favorites. I’ve watched each at least 2 times. Links take you straight to the videos.

My ask: Find time over the next week to watch the first ten minutes of whichever one interests you most. I don’t think you’ll regret it.

Pro Tip: Set YouTube to 1.5 speed via the settings gear on the video. Take a third off of all the times.

I’m currently smack-dab in the middle of a few hustle-and-bustle weeks- the kind where you find yourself asking how the HELL you’re going to get everything, ANYTHING, done.

Part of this hustle-and-bustle was an amazing weekend with a few good friends, with another one coming up. As I’ve taken a breath in-between, I’ve been blessed with a moment of clarity- how fucking trivial my worries are.

Despite the busy-ness, the seemingly constant pressure, and the long-list of things I have yet to do (each one a stressor that I established for myself), this life is so good, rich, and undeservingly beautiful.

Life may seem (and actually be) difficult right now, but try to take a moment to appreciate the surplus of amazing people, opportunities, and even things that we have in it. We can never display too much gratitude, and it is so important to leading a happy life.

On that note, thank you for still reading and showing up everyday. I appreciate you more than you can know.

So many good things in life suffer from the problem of the chicken and the egg.

We’re unkind to others because others are unkind to us. Communities aren’t built because nobody shows up. Nobody gets behind an idea because no one else is behind it.

The hardest part is always starting the engine, reversing the trend. It demands an outlier, someone to swim against the current when everyone else is going with it.

Clarity is rare. It often strikes like lightning: fast, intense, and unsuspected.

When clarity arrives in this fashion, it’s because we waited too long. Hidden truths built up in our subconscious until they reached a critical mass, bursting through the fold.

There’s no reason we can’t cultivate clarity, catch it before it bursts.

How? Allow for space. For silence. Find a place to simply be. Make space, and clarity will come singing through the fold.