How To Get Creative & Take Your Career To The Next Level

Gravitas Recordings’ founder, Jesse Brede, has worn many entrepreneurial hats throughout his career, building successful companies that expertly balance creative freedom and innovative business strategies. During a lecture series with CM@UIW in 2012, Jesse gave insight into his own experiences, sharing helpful advice for aspiring creators.

Whether you’re hoping to build a start-up, manage a business, or invent something entirely new, here are Jesse’s tips to help you turn your dreams into reality:

1. Have, Do, Be vs. Be, Do, Have

   – Be who you want to be. It will bring you the opportunities you want to have — not the other way around.

   – Don’t be afraid to just jump in and do something now that will propel you towards your ultimate goal.

2. Set Your Intentions

   – Get clear on what you want. Write it down.

   – Do something today to demonstrate your commitment to your intention.

3. Make A Timeline

   – When are you going to do what you want to do? There is no someday. You can check any calendar in the world, it doesn’t exist.

   – Create a timeline comprised of concrete steps towards your target. Follow the steps and before you know it, you’ll be making substantial progress.

4. Turn Your Passion Into Your Money Maker

   – Take your passion and allow it to make money (or make a living) for you. Don’t let the fear of failure hold you back.

5. Spot Opportunity

   – Examine your own struggles and the struggles of others in your markets, then spot the opportunity.

   – Break in. There are job openings and other ways to get involved in every creative industry. Take that first step towards what you want.

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So now that you’ve started something cool, how can you turn it into a success?

“Every day I wake up and ask myself, ‘What do I want to accomplish with my life? What is the world I want to create?’” Jesse said during another CM@UIW lecture in 2013, revealing his special tricks for creating a life specific to your needs.

1. Get the Most out of Your Time by Practicing

   – Deliberate practice is the best way to succeed. Focus on all aspects of a particular skill and spend a dedicated block of time working on it. Here are some methods to try:

   • Ultradian Rhythms: Spend 90-120 minutes on focused practice.
   • Von Restorff Effect: also known as the “isolation effect,” the Von Restorff Effect predicts that when multiple homogenous stimuli are presented, the stimulus that differs from the rest is more likely to be remembered.
   • 10K Hour Rule: We don’t have to all be masters in every field. The 10,000 Rule is simply a matter of practicing a specific task that can be accomplished with 20 hours of work a week for 10 years.
   • Meta-Learning: Tim Ferris’ model for accelerated learning can help you acquire a skill “in six months or less.”

2. Set Your Goals

   – Whether it’s yearly, monthly, weekly, daily, or all four, setting your goals makes them reachable and achievable. Pair long-term objectives with short-term to-do lists that will aid you in getting to “final destination” over a set period of time.

3. Plan Your Work, Work Your Plan

   – Be specific: What is your measurable result? Don’t just say “I want to be a music producer.” Write down specific qualities to describe your goal and use that as your roadmap.

4. Time Efficiency

   – Develop a morning routine.

   – MITS (most important things): Make a list and select the top three priorities. Do the activities that are most important first.

   – Existence Systems (time management, project management): Wonderlist, Evernote, Basecamp, Asana and Kanban.

   – Don’t multi-task. Focus.

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