The Work Doesn’t Count Unless You Ship It

The work doesn’t count unless you ship it.

If you don’t press upload, share or play - the work doesn’t exist.

A few years back, I had just wrapped up a short film. Like many creatives towards the end of a process, I was wrought with self-doubt. I thought it was terrible. I thought I was terrible. So I wanted to hide myself and my work from the world.

With a little help from a mentor, I decided that uploading the work and sharing it with the world was going to somehow be worth it. It wasn’t that someone was going to tell me it was good. It’s that I was sending a message to myself that the process of making and sharing was going to keep me going.

I would no longer be stuck waiting for perfect. Regardless of results, praise or humiliation -  I would keep creating.

Did I become reckless and sloppy? No.

Empowered to forge past fear? Yes!

That work could have died as a .mov on my hard drive. Instead it shipped. It exists. And so does the rest of my work from that point forward.

Creativity is a choice. Passion is a choice. Be the boss of your process, and the rest will come.