Hold Too Tight and Your Work Suffocates

On preciousness and circulation.

The moment you fall in love with your framework, your content, your book, your method, you're screwed.

Preciousness kills circulation. When it's yours, you tend to protect it. You explain it and justify every choice. You don’t mind spending hours on its details.

When it's someone else's, you might only ask: does this work? In which way would this be useful? What would make someone care?

The work that wants to live moves through you, not from you. Your ideas are looking for a bridge rather than a parent.

Hold too tight and your work suffocates.

What you're protecting disappears in the protection. For example, you keep your book safe from misinterpretation and it becomes safe from interpretation entirely.

Be its enabler. Let it go where it needs to go. When you can't let go, you can't let others in. The work stays small because it never gets to move beyond you.

Let’s trust the work knows where it belongs better than you do.

Step back and watch it find its people.