If I had a magic wand that helped me hack into the Google Drives of my heroes, what would I find?
What would Seth Godin’s Google drive look like?
What about Elizabeth Gilbert’s Google Drive?
Surely, it would be neat, well managed, and artistic?
Simon Sinek? J.K. Rowling?
Shitty drafts.
Yeah, that’s what I would find. A lot of shitty drafts.
A lot of really bad writing.
No, their Google Drive is not clean, perfect… filled with rainbows and unicorns.
In fact, their Google Drive is a LOT MESSIER THAN ours.
And that’s precisely the reason that they are successful. They show courage and take the leap. They love the grind… and the slog. They fall in love with the messiness of writing.
And most importantly, they do a lot of bad writing.
Day after day. Week after week. Years after years.
And then amidst these shitty drafts…emerges a beautiful blog article.
Or sometimes even a book.
What we see is the tip of the iceberg. So there’s no point putting our heroes on a pedestal. They don’t write neat stuff, all the time.
They are messy. A lot messier than you and me. They just don’t show it to the world.
So please, I beg you to write.
And create more shitty first drafts.