The Biggest Mistake Creative People Make
The Danger of Keeping Your Best Ideas to Yourself (Comedy Mindhacks #124)
Over the last week, I’ve driven several thousand miles through more than a dozen states. If you’ve ever spent that much time behind the wheel, you know your brain eventually starts looking for something deeper than another playlist, podcast, or road game with the wife and kids. So, somewhere between one state and the next, I decided to introduce my family to one of my favorite novels, The Chosen, by one of my favorite authors, Chaim Potok. It’s a book I first read years ago but hadn’t returned to in quite some time.
In Chapter Seven, David Malter, a Jewish scholar, says something to his son Reuven (the main character) that made me pause the audiobook and actually discuss it with my wife for a few minutes. He says, “If a person has a contribution to make, he must make it in public. If learning is not made public, it is a waste.” Now, that line isn’t about comedy, writing, or even creativity. It’s about scholarship, particularly Jewish scholarship, and scholarly responsibility. Even so, I couldn’t stop thinking about how perfectly it describes the life of creatives, including comedians.
Most people think creativity is about having ideas. I don’t think that’s quite right anymore. Plenty of people have ideas. Plenty of people have funny observations, interesting stories, clever premises, or valuable lessons they’ve learned through experience. So, the real difference then isn’t between people who have ideas and people who don’t. The difference is between people who contribute publicly and people who don’t.
Stand-up comedy has taught me that lesson over and over again. Until it’s used, a joke sitting in my Notes app has exactly the same impact on the world as a joke that doesn’t exist. It might make me feel prepared somehow or a little productive. It might even make me feel like I’m becoming a better comedian, which may be true. But the fact is: Until another human being actually hears the joke, though, its potential remains completely unrealized.
The same thing is true for articles, podcasts, books, paintings, songs, businesses, inventions, and almost anything or everything else worth creating. The world isn’t changed by private brilliance. It’s changed by public contribution. Knowledge hidden inside a notebook helps almost no one just like wisdom locked inside one’s own head doesn’t become wisdom for anyone else.
Over the last 25ish years, that’s actually how I’ve tried to live. It just so happens that a character in a fiction book articulated it better than I ever have. I write constantly. I publish often. I make videos, record podcasts, perform stand-up, teach classes, and share ideas almost every day. Not everything I create is great. Some of it never gains much traction at all. That’s perfectly fine because my responsibility isn’t to control how every contribution is received. My responsibility is simply to keep contributing.
Ironically, someone recently told me another comedian has been complaining that I write and publish too much. Apparently he doesn’t like my content and wishes I shared less of it. I honestly wasn’t offended because I realized something in that moment: Nobody is required to read what I write. The internet already solved that problem!!! If something isn’t helpful, people can simply keep scrolling.
What I found more interesting was the assumption hiding underneath the guy’s complaint. Seriously, imagine criticizing someone for making too much stuff. Imagine looking at another person who’s trying to contribute, teach, encourage, or simply create, and deciding the real problem is that they’re creating too often. That way of thinking has never made much sense to me because I don’t believe contribution is something we should ration. I think it’s something we should multiply!
Comedy has reinforced that conviction more than almost anything else in my life. Every set teaches me something. Every article clarifies my thinking. Every podcast conversation sharpens an idea I didn’t fully understand before I said it out loud. Public contribution isn’t just how I help other people. It’s also how I continue growing myself.
That’s one reason I don’t worry about creating “too much.” I worry far more about creating too little. I worry about sitting on ideas that might genuinely help someone simply because they aren’t perfect yet. I worry about letting fear, criticism, or comparison convince me to become quieter instead of more generous. Those seem like much greater risks than publishing one article too many.
That line from The Chosen has stayed with me ever since I heard it again on that long drive. “If a person has a contribution to make, he must make it in public. If learning is not made public, it is a waste.” Again, even though David Malter was talking about scholarship, the principle reaches much further than that. Every creator eventually has to decide whether his or her work exists to be admired privately or shared publicly. I’ve already made my decision. I’ll keep writing, performing, and publishing. I’ll keep making my contribution in public because that’s where ideas stop belonging only to me and begin helping others who might benefit from them.
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