Brené Brown on the Difference Dealing with the Darkness During the Creative Process when You Have Had Success or Not

Researcher and Storyteller Brené Brown has been an inspiration for millions since she her TED Talk made her web-famous a few years ago. I’ve often recommend her work, her speech at 99U is one that had a major impact on how I receive feedback, and her conversation with Tim Ferriss is one I highly recommend.

In a conversation she did with Chase Jarvis that I’ve recommended in the Sunday interestingness newsletter and that is worth listening to in its entirety, Brené is asked advice on how to deal with doubts (what she calls “the gremlins”) when you’re unknown and/or just starting.

Brené draws an interesting parallel between the three acts structure we’ve all become familiar with, and the creative process, focusing about the middle stage, the one where your character is stuck, and you’re probably getting stuck as well.

Here is what she says:

“Act 2 is where the main character tries to solve the problem by every easy way possible without being vulnerable. And so that’s that part of the creative process where you’re like “I want to do this and I don’t want it to hurt”. It’s the darkness.

The thing about the darkness that creatives taught me, which is so beautiful and has changed my life is that, if it is your 500th meeting with your creative director and you’re in the dark, and things are not getting better, and you’ve redesigned and redone and it’ not better, you cannot skip Act 2, even if it’s your 20th year doing this.

The only thing experience gives you is a little grace that whispers in your ear: “You’ve been in the dark before, you know your way through, stay in the dark. It’s gonna be okay.”

So when you say “the two of you had some success now”, the difference I think in probably what you feel when the gremlins are saying “You’re not enough, who do you think you are?” and the gremlins are saying it to me, is I know that I will come out of this. That’s it.“

I love that. I love the reminder that success or even experience doesn’t mean not getting lost, feeling fragile and ultimately like shit when creating. This is part of the creative process punto.

The skill you can decide to gain today is the capacity to tell yourself: this is normal, baby step, baby step, baby step, until I find the way out of this tunnel.