Category: Writing

Success for 20-Somethings Cover

Success for 20-Somethings

Nik

I won’t leave my 20s with a fiancé, a checked off bucket list, or a shredded body. I didn’t party a lot, date a lot, or travel as much as I would have liked.

I will, however, finish my 20s with two things most people want but don’t get: A job I can do for the rest of my life and financial independence.

Not in an I-can-buy-my-own-island sense but in an I-can-feed-a-family-of-four sense. All without a boss and including multi-year, what-if-shit-hits-the-fan savings, earned from doing what I love.

Two of the biggest existential fears we have in our 20s are feeling lost in our careers and anxious about our financial future. I have eliminated both of them. Who can say that before they’re 30? Not many.

To me, those two things are success. You may define it differently, and that’s okay. But if you want those two things, if you’re okay with figuring out the rest later, here’s everything I’ve learned about how to get them.

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Now Would Be a Great Time to Give Up Cover

Now Would Be a Great Time to Give Up

Nik

11:29 on a Thursday. PM, of course. You don’t feel like writing. You really, really don’t. But if you don’t prep another draft, you might fall behind on your experiment. You might not publish every weekday. So what can you do?

I mean, no one’s forcing you to write. You don’t need to. Especially not right now. The world will keep spinning either way. Who cares if you don’t?

Haven’t you earned the right to quit? Inbox zero, the call where you planned a new project, the newsletter you sent out — you did all of those today. Can’t that be enough? Of course, it could. It probably is. Yet here you are, staring at the blinking cursor.

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Your Only Job Is to Let Yourself Be Good Enough Cover

Your Only Job Is to Let Yourself Be Good Enough

Nik

You know that Coldplay song, Viva La Vida? The one with the strings and choir that tells the story of a fallen king:

I used to rule the world
Seas would rise when I gave the word
Now in the morning, I sleep alone
Sweep the streets I used to own

I’ve always wondered why it’s such an upbeat song. Why it’s called “long live life” when it’s about someone who’s lost everything they had in theirs. Well, Chris Martin, lead singer of the band, once explained the title.

When he was in Mexico, he went to a museum, and, in there, he saw the last painting Frida Kahlo ever made. It’s called Viva La Vida.

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Why You Can Do Anything Cover

Why You Can Do Anything

Nik

In the 1970s, there was an electrician in Philadelphia. The man’s job was to install freezing cases in supermarkets. You know, the long aisles with glass doors where you pick up your milk and frozen pizza. To set up his own little workshop, the man bought an old bakery.

One summer, he decided to rebuild the front wall. It was made of bricks, about 16 feet high, and 30 feet long. After he had torn down the old façade, he called his two sons to the site. They were twelve and nine years old. He told them they were now in charge of building a new wall.

The boys’ first task was to dig a six-foot hole for the foundation. Then, they filled it with concrete, which they had to mix by hand. Clearly, this wasn’t just a job for the summer holidays. For the next year and a half, every day after school, the boys went to their father’s shop to build the wall. To the young brothers, it felt like forever. But eventually, they laid the final brick.

When their dad came to audit what they had done, the three of them stood back and looked at the result. There it was. A brand new, magnificent, 16 by 30 feet wall. The man looked at his sons and said, “Don’t y’all never tell me that you can’t do something” — and then he walked into the shop.

The electrician’s name was Willard Carrol Smith. It’s the same name he gave his oldest son, the 12-year-old in the story. Today, we know him as Will Smith.

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You Don't Need Authority Cover

You Don’t Need Authority – You Just Have to Care

Nik

Remember when you first learned how to draw? Oh, the artworks that you made! You didn’t even need a model or a scene — you made it all up from scratch, using nothing but your imagination.

A dragon looked how you thought a dragon should look. A house was a house in your image. What’s more, nothing had to be perfect, because you could always explain your picture to the audience.

“That’s you, mom!”

“Ah, of course, I see it now!”

The best thing about the pictures we paint as children, however, is that because they’re so self-evidently not about us, we’re happy to give them away. Every one is about something, but also for someone.

As a result, and I’m sure you remember this as well, we would regularly toddle over to our parents and say, “Look! I made this for you.”

“Aww, that’s so cute honey, this’ll go right on the fridge!”

The fridge?! Are you serious?! Ohmygodthankyousomuch!

We may not have shown it, but seeing our work “up there” felt special, didn’t it? Yeah, I definitely remember now. Good times.

What happened to this feeling? Actually, what happened to us?

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3 Lessons From 4 Years of Writing Cover

3 Lessons From 4 Years of Writing

Nik

I published my first article in November 2014. I had no idea what I was doing, but I had fun. Ironically, the only way to keep this fun around long-term was to consider writing the most serious job I’ve ever had. So I committed.

Now, over four years later, nothing is the same. Except that part. The fun’s still here. I even have a slightly better idea of what I’m doing. But writing online is different from anything I’d ever imagined or associated with that word.

Here are 3 lessons I rarely see others mention, but that helped me get to now.

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College Library Career Cover

I Spent My 20s in College Libraries and Came Out With a Career

Nik

I’d love to tell you that, to me, the library has always been a magical place – but it wasn’t.

Having grown up in a pile of books in a home where the walls were already lined with literature, library visits were rare and, often, disappointing. Our local, small-town book collection didn’t feel as refined as the one we had at home and due to funding issues, the place itself always seemed to teeter on the brink of foreclosure.

Today, you can get most books rather cheaply right from your couch, but there are still many reasons to go to the library beyond selection and price. Sadly, I never found those reasons when I was younger.

But when I started college, all of that changed. I’ve spent the majority of my 20s in campus libraries and, to this day, they’re the only kind of office I know. As it turns out, the library is more than a place of knowledge and wonder.

If you want to shape, even invent your own career, it’s a factory of dreams.

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How To Be An Extremely Productive Creative Cover

How To Be An Extremely Productive Creative

Nik

The difference between hitting the golf ball at its center or one millimeter below is the difference between the rough and the green.

When we tell artists all they need to succeed is to create daily, we’re telling them to omit that difference. This is a disastrous disservice. It’s close to, but not quite the truth and, as such, potentially more dangerous than a blatant lie.

We all know quantity begets quality. Picasso created 50,000 pieces, Stephen King wrote some 80 books, and Jimi Hendrix recorded close to 200 songs despite dying at age 27. An immense body of work can’t guarantee you’ll be a great artist or a rich artist or even a famous artist. But if you’re a professional artist, at least you’ll maximize your chances. The math checks out.

But it takes more than just creating daily. That part is important, but when I look back on two years of weekly newsletters sent without fail, I see not one habit, but a conjunction of three, all of which support one another.

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