If you hustle – all out, fully hustle – and you succeed, then you gain the satisfaction of a job well done. If you hustle and fail, you never have to worry about what might have been if you’d given everything.

If you slack off, you might get lucky and still succeed, but there’s little satisfaction other than the temporary thrill of escaping with your life. If you slack off and fail, you have to live forever with not knowing what you were truly capable of.

Hustling is the best insurance policy against lifelong regret.

Reality trumps normalcy.

And so life is art, and the unveiling of the ineffable. This is why art moves us – it’s not so much the revelation of something new, a new ground we must take, as it is a return to things we already deeply know.

Art is, then, a kind of homecoming. But art that, for the sake of the artist’s ego, tries to take us to a foreign place for the sake of isolating and belittling our relative abilities, is creative narcissism. It doesn’t serve us, it robs from us.

The artist is a servant. A pathfinder. 

Experience 1
Yesterday was Mother’s Day here in the US, and the kids and I took my wife to a ”fancy restaurant” (by the kids’ definition, this means that they have to wear a shirt with a collar) for brunch. We went with another couple and their son, and everyone had a fantastic time. As brunches go, this one was on the more expensive side for us, clocking in at about $35 per adult and $15 per child, but it was an event so we considered the price worth it. (As a family of five, ”dining out” for us normally means going to Chipotle.)

The food was good. Our server was very attentive.The bill came, and we noticed that in addition to the $35/person buffet, we’d also been charged on a per item basis (1) $5/cup for coffee x2 and (2) $2.75/glass for drinks x5.

It isn’t about the money. We’d already made the decision to spend a lot of it. An extra $25 is not a huge deal. However, it was a violation of our expectations. We’d assumed – wrongly – that our buffet included coffee and juice because of our past experience (at much less expensive buffets).

Experience 2
A few weeks ago my wife and I were out on a date. We had a restaurant in mind, but by the time we got around to finalizing plans, there was no time left to make a reservation. As a result, we head out in search of whatever would hit the spot.

We landed – unexpectedly – at a chain Italian restaurant called Bravo. It was close to our destination, and it looked like we could get in and out quickly. To be frank, our expectations weren’t all that high. We were there for a quick meal.

What followed was one of the coolest experiences we’ve had at a restaurant in a very long time. The server asked if we’d like to try an experimental appetizer that the chef had been working on that day. (Um….sure.) It didn’t blow us away, but it was OK.

A few minutes later, the chef emerged from the kitchen. He wanted to know how we enjoyed the appetizer, and we shared our thoughts. We told him what we liked, what we didn’t, etc. He peppered us with questions for about five minutes, squatting down beside our table and asking how we thought he could improve the dish. My wife and I exchanged glances with each other that indicated, “can you believe this? I can’t believe how passionate this guy is about getting this appetizer right.”

This alone would have been a cool example of passion and attention to detail, but there was more to come. We finished our meals, which were surprisingly delicious, by the way, and our server asked if we would care for dessert. We are not dessert people, but we often toss back and forth what we would “like” to have if we were, and in this case my wife said something about chocolate, but in the end we simply asked for the check.

The chef returned with the server a few minutes later with a special ”made for two” chocolate desert that he’d crafted as a thank you for all of our help. Wow. We were blown away. Neither the appetizer, nor the desert showed up on our (very reasonable) bill.

What I Learned
In example one, we came in prepared to pay a hefty fee for our brunch, but our expectations were violated by little surcharges and we left underwhelmed. In example two , we came in with low expectations and left overwhelmed by the level of attention to detail and service.

It would have taken so little to turn either of these situations the other direction. It was the small stuff that mattered. In the first example, we felt small. We felt like the system was designed to squeeze as much value as possible from the patrons. In the second example, we felt as of we were being treated as special guests even though it was a giant chain restaurant.

There are many opportunities in life and work to short-cut to results. It’s possible that many people won’t even notice these little short-cuts. But eventually they will, and they will talk.

It is absolutely critical that we stay focused on the small stuff in life and work. Our passion and commitment to our craft is shown more in the small stuff than in the big stuff, and that’s also where the cracks will begin to appear.

Lessons: Sweat the small stuff. Commit to the details. Be passionate about your craft. Exceed expectations consistently.

Can you think of an instance in which a person said or did something that completely changed the course of your life for the better?

The other day a friend (and former co-worker) sent me this video along with a note of thanks for having been a “lollipop leader” in her life. It got me thinking about the countless number of people who have had the same impact on me. They’ve led me, and sometimes unknowingly. It’s happened more times than I can count.

Leadership is everyone’s business, and it’s not about a title or organizational role.

It’s about choosing to care enough to act.

It’s about doing and saying the things that everyone else thinks about doing and saying.

It’s about taking arrows on behalf of someone else, and never telling a living soul about it.

It’s about saying hard truths out of compassion for another person face-to-face rather than complaining about them behind their back.

It’s about calling out the beauty you see.

It’s about doing the little things flawlessly every…single…time.

It’s about making others feel larger than life.

Go lead today. Don’t wait for permission. Leadership is everyone’s business.

Your turn: What other attributes of leadership would you add to this list?

OK – I’ll admit it. I nearly cried multiple times while watching the short film Caine’s Arcade. I’m a sucker for the beauty of pure, passionate pursuit. I’m especially prone to leap for joy when I see someone unexpectedly rewarded for their effort. I love a good underdog story.

All of that said, I think that this short film is much more than just a feel-good story. I pulled at least three solid, valuable lessons from this film that I plan to immediately apply to my work.

1. Boredom is more of a statement about the person than the situation. “Hey Caine…want to come spend the summer with me in the back of my barely-trafficked auto parts store?” For most kids this would be summer vacation equivalent of the kiss of death. There was no gaming system. No swimming pool. No television. A perfect excuse for “I’m booooooorrrred.”

But NO. Caine looked around and saw opportunity. Everywhere. Cardboard boxes, packing tape, gadgets and doo-dads. He chose not to be bored. It’s totally a state of mind.

My lesson: If I am bored with my work it is my problem, not the work’s. It is my responsibility to stay interested and forward-looking. Stop whining. The world doesn’t owe you anything.

2. Keep working while the world ignores you. How long was it before Caine had customer #1? How many entrepreneurs or artists would have given up by then, or stopped working at their craft and improving their skills? Caine approached his arcade with craftsmanship and fervor, and that’s what I aspire to do too.

My lesson: Attention is a secondary luxury to the artist focused on craft. It may come, and it may not, but devotion to craft is the one thing I can control.

3. Your craft will cost you something. Did you notice the prizes in the arcade? Caine’s own toys. His vision for his arcade required (demanded!) that he use all of his resources to make it work, and this meant forfeiting his own stuff for the sake of his vision.

My lesson: Ask frequently and answer honestly “am I really putting all of myself into this?” I need to make sure I’m fully backing that which I’m asking others to believe in.

These are just a few things I pulled from this gem of a film. PLEASE add to the list below so that we can all learn from one another. What lesson would you add? Please let us know in the comments.

This technology thoroughly amazes me. I believe we’re seeing the seeds of future manufacturing techniques, transportation, and service. It’s almost Star Wars-esque. (Tell me that these robots – just purchased by Amazon – don’t remind you of those little droids from the Death Star.)

I spent the past seven days on the road, both in Austin (at SXSW) and Palm Springs, CA (speaking at Giants of Design). It was a remarkable time and I enjoyed speaking and signing books at SXSW, but the highlight of the trip was – by far – in Palm Springs, getting to meet one of my favorite people on the web, Ze Frank. Ze spoke right before me, and afterward we had the chance to connect and talk a little about the nature of creativity. He even challenged me to create more tools to help people do the things I teach them. Very cool.

What I love so much about Ze is that he’s a maker. It’s his default mode to create things, put them into community, and watch them morph and develop. While there are more and more tools available on the web for creating things, it’s becoming easier and easier to slip solely into consumption mode. We need more makers in the world. We need more people who see their purpose on this earth being to bring things into being for the the use and enjoyment of others.

If you’ve not seen it, Ze did a talk at TED in 2010. It’s fantastic. I aspire to be more of a maker in my everyday life. I aspire to be more like Ze.

I’m writing this from the confines of a CanadaAir Regional Jet. For those who are familiar with these words, you realize that I’m presently contorted and smushed into my seat using my elbows to type this. As the flight attendant came down the row I asked her if it bothers her that people never pay attention when she does her pre-flight instructions. She smiled and acknowledged that it kind of comes with the turf. (I sometimes wonder if flight attendants secretly fantasize about a minor emergency just as a form of vindication… “Oh…your magazine isn’t so interesting NOW, is it?”) That said, I (for one) am extremely glad to know that someone is there if anything goes wrong on the flight.

It got me thinking about the nature of thankless work. So much of what we do as creatives is thankless. It’s process. It’s iteration. It’s cranking away with the hopes that the finished work will vindicate us (no emergencies needed). But no one sees the internal turmoil, the questioning or the little choices we make that cost us something. We make these choices because we love our craft, not because of recognition.

When we choose a path of contribution, it often means a choice to forgo recognition for our work. Commitment to excellence means doing things right even when it may never be seen by another living soul.

So…here’s a question: what’s the most thankless (but meaningful) work you do?