An Audience of One: Reclaiming Creativity for Its Own Sake

The creator of the Unmistakable Creative podcast makes a counterintuitive argument: By focusing your creative work on pleasing yourself, you can increase your productivity, happiness, and (eventually, paradoxically) the size of your audience.

Creating for your own pleasure--whether you're writing a novel, composing songs, or painting a landscape--can seem pointless. It's tempting to focus on pursuing money and fame, rather than the process itself. But as Srini Rao warns, creating then turns into a chore that can harm your self-esteem and suck the pleasure out of life, rather than being a source of joy.

Rao, host of the podcast The Unmistakable Creative, argues that we should counter this thinking by intentionally creating art for ourselves alone--an audience of one. In this book he shares the fascinating true stories of creatives who took this path, along with actionable tips and the research of creativity experts. You'll learn, for example:

  •  How Oprah's intentional focus on her own work rather than the opinions of everyone else catapulted her into one of the most popular talk shows of all time.

  •  How being process-driven can not only help you produce more work, but can make you happier outside of your creative time.

  •  How to put together a creative "team of rivals" whose feedback can help you hone your craft and filter out useless feedback.

By playing to an audience of one, we can find more happiness, increased productivity, and a greater sense of community.

• Creative Calling: Establish a Daily Practice, Infuse Your World with Meaning, and Succeed in Work + Life
• The Artist's Journey: The Wake of the Hero's Journey and the Lifelong Pursuit of Meaning
• Unmistakable: Why Only Is Better Than Best
• Wonderbook (Revised and Expanded): The Illustrated Guide to Creating Imaginative Fiction
• Keep Going: 10 Ways to Stay Creative in Good Times and Bad
• This Is Marketing: You Can't Be Seen Until You Learn to See
• The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters
• Find Your Artistic Voice: The Essential Guide to Working Your Creative Magic (Art Book for Artists, Creative Self-Help Book)
• Nobody Wants to Read Your Sh*t: And Other Tough-Love Truths to Make You a Better Writer
• The Heart to Start: Stop Procrastinating & Start Creating