This past weekend I was at the Reina Sofía museum in Madrid where they house an enormous amount of Picasso’s work.
Whether or not Pablo’s art (from any of his periods) is your cup of tea, we have to admit that he did a staggering amount of work. Estimates are between 50-150,000 pieces of art over his ~75 year career. Even the most conservative figures have him making 1-2 pieces of art per day!
Like him or not, he was prolific.
In particular I was looking at the sketch above which I believe is an early idea sketch he made for his well-known masterpiece Guernica. Luckily I have a mother with a PhD in art history so if I’m mistaken, I’ll find out soon. Either way, both pieces were housed in the same room.
Both big ideas AND mastery come to us over time and in bits and pieces. Picasso wasn’t born a genius. He worked his way into it, slowly.
There’s an old interview with Ira Glass, the host of This American Life, where he describes what he calls the Gap. It’s where we have ambition and good taste, but the work we’re making doesn’t meet that standard yet. It falls short and the only remedy for that gap is to do a huge volume of work. He goes on to say that everyone has to go through this period and most people quit before they get to the other side.
I think this premise holds true whether you’re painting, writing, recording songs, releasing code, or launching a new business. In order to be as good as you want to be, you have to do a lot of work.
It’s not uncommon for me to be in a hurry to get where I want to be creatively and professionally. I want to be a solid writer, an impactful speaker, and one of the world’s best coaches for leaders and teams. But I don’t get to skip the line on these pursuits. They all come at the cost of repeated reps and cycles.
The bigger challenge is having patience with myself while I’m getting really good at the craft.
I like the work. I want to be better at everything I do, and this — showing up a little better than I did the day before — is my life's work. To avoid resting on my laurels and use my time and energy wisely.
Some days I’m tired and just don’t have it in me. But most days, I can say I’m doing my best and putting in the work and getting better little by slowly.
I don’t need to paint Guernica today. I don’t need to have published 10 books or spoken on all the world’s most important stages. I just need to sit my ass in the chair and write one or two of the best pages I can write that day and believe that tomorrow, my work will be just a little bit better.