5 Reasons Why You Should Start Creating in Your Garage

Walt Disney’s first advertisement

I started working on that (animated short) in the garage
while I was still working for the film studio.  

Great Beginnings Start in the Garage

Walt Disney started creating his animated shorts in his garage while he still had a day job.

The world was forever changed because of his unwavering commitment to bring his ideas to life.

You dream about changing the world for good.  And yet you aren’t making any headway on your master plan.

You have this secret hope that you might receive a FedEx package with an invitation inside that reads,

You are cordially invited to begin doing the work of your dreams;
Please report to duty on Monday morning.

Come on?

Instead of waiting for that mythical invitation to pursue your life’s passion,
you should start working in the garage today.

It is the best hope you have.

How am I so sure? 

This summer my family and I were in San Francisco and we visited the Walt Disney Family Museum (Read more on the museum).

Listen to the podcast interview.

On the wall there was one quote that lured me to quickly write it down.

I started working on that …..in the garage.

In the early 1920’s Walt Disney was working in Los Angeles, CA for a film studio.

  • His name was not yet in neon lights.
  • His dreams had not yet been realized.
  • While he still had a day job.
  • While he was putting food on the table.
  • While he was a freelancer trading hours for a day’s wage.

  • He was secretly working in the garage on his best stuff.

Walt Disney altered American family history because he started tinkering in the garage.

I think you should start altering the trajectory of your future by creating in your garage.

Why your best work is born in the garage?

1) No one is watching.

That’s right.  No one is over your shoulder watching you work asking if you are done yet.  You have the opportunity to work on your craft without anyone else witnessing your creation.

2) There is no pressure.

You don’t have a deadline.  You are free of obligation to deliver a finished work.  There are no customers tapping their toes waiting on your final product.

3) Your livelihood does not count on it.

When decoupling your livelihood from your craft there is an immense amount of pressure relieved.  So what if you mess it up?  So what if it sucks?
So what if you start over 52 times?

Paying your mortgage is not tied to the result.

4) You will never have more passion than you do right now.

Never again will you be so unadulterated in your view of this project.

The purity of your passion is like that of a Hawaiian black sand beach
just after a volcano erupted virgin lava onto her shore.

Yep that damn sexy.

Think of the welled up desire that you have to pour out onto the paper, the sculpture, the wood, or the guitar strings.

When else will you possess this poetic a prose?

5) The rent is cheap

The garage looks pretty affordable compared to a two-year lease for an office.  Pause and appreciate the luxury of being nimble, thrifty and dynamic.

Once you hire a bunch of people and start spending all of your time meeting with attorneys and accountants everything changes.

Bonus advice: You already have a Thing

A good friend advised me that the best time to start working on your next thing is right now while you have a thing.   

Isn’t that great advice?

The garage is perfect. 

The garage is the perfect figurative or physical place for you to start honing your craft.

Where would the world be if Walt Disney had not started tinkering with animation in his garage?

Where will we be if you don’t start in your garage?

Other compelling nudges for you to start:

Everyone is waiting on you.

Start doing the job you wish you had.

Do you feel like you are playing for the farm team?

What do you think you have to loose?

5 Reasons Why You Should Start Creating in Your Garage (Like Walt Disney)?

“I started working on that (animated short) in the garage
while I was still working for the film studio.” Walt Disney  

Great Beginnings Start in the Garage

Walt Disney started creating his animated shorts in his garage while he still had a day job.

The world was forever changed because of his unwavering commitment to bring his ideas to life.

You dream about changing the world for good.  And yet you aren’t making any headway on your master plan.

You have this secret hope that you might receive a FedEx package with an invitation inside that reads,

You are cordially invited to begin doing the work of your dreams;
Please report to duty on Monday morning.

Come on?

Instead of waiting for that mythical invitation to pursue your life’s passion,
you should start working in the garage today.

It is the best hope you have.

How am I so sure? 

This summer my family and I were in San Francisco and we visited the Walt Disney Family Museum (Read more on the museum).

Listen to the podcast interview.

On the wall there was one quote that lured me to quickly write it down.

I started working on that …..in the garage.

In the early 1920’s Walt Disney was working in Los Angeles, CA for a film studio.

  • His name was not yet in neon lights.
  • His dreams had not yet been realized.
  • While he still had a day job.
  • While he was putting food on the table.
  • While he was a freelancer trading hours for a day’s wage.

  • He was secretly working in the garage on his best stuff.

Walt Disney altered American family history because he started tinkering in the garage.

I think you should start altering the trajectory of your future by creating in your garage.

Why your best work is born in the garage?

1) No one is watching.

That’s right.  No one is over your shoulder watching you work asking if you are done yet.  You have the opportunity to work on your craft without anyone else witnessing your creation.

2) There is no pressure.

You don’t have a deadline.  You are free of obligation to deliver a finished work.  There are no customers tapping their toes waiting on your final product.

3) Your livelihood does not count on it.

When decoupling your livelihood from your craft there is an immense amount of pressure relieved.  So what if you mess it up?  So what if it sucks?
So what if you start over 52 times?

Paying your mortgage is not tied to the result.

4) You will never have more passion than you do right now.

Never again will you be so unadulterated in your view of this project.

The purity of your passion is like that of a Hawaiian black sand beach
just after a volcano erupted virgin lava onto her shore.

Yep that damn sexy.

Think of the welled up desire that you have to pour out onto the paper, the sculpture, the wood, or the guitar strings.

When else will you possess this poetic a prose?

5) The rent is cheap

The garage looks pretty affordable compared to a two-year lease for an office.  Pause and appreciate the luxury of being nimble, thrifty and dynamic.

Once you hire a bunch of people and start spending all of your time meeting with attorneys and accountants everything changes.

Bonus advice: You already have a Thing

A good friend advised me that the best time to start working on your next thing is right now while you have a thing.   

Isn’t that great advice?

The garage is perfect. 

The garage is the perfect figurative or physical place for you to start honing your craft.

Where would the world be if Walt Disney had not started tinkering with animation in his garage?

Where will we be if you don’t start in your garage?

Other compelling nudges for you to start:

Everyone is waiting on you.

Start doing the job you wish you had.

Do you feel like you are playing for the farm team?

What do you think you have to loose?

Do You Feel Like You Are Playing for the Farm Team?

Your career can feel like Farm Team baseball.

Farm team baseball feeds the Major League teams with the rising cream of the crop.  Once recruited, young talent starts proving and validating what the scout witnessed during try outs:  fielding grounders, throwing heat, and smashing home runs.

It’s the turf where some of the young recruits morph into MLB players.

Playing for the farm team advances each players probability to get the call to “The Show”.  Every farm team player wants to play in the major leagues and the farm team is a necessary season in the career of most ball players.  Some guys only spend a few weeks or months playing the circuit of small market towns like Omaha, NE.

Some players are unable to break through the talent pool requirements and end up stuck on the farm team for their career.  For every season a player spends on the farm team, his dream of playing in the big leagues becomes less likely.

Why do you care?  You don’t even like baseball?

Many of us feel like we are playing on the farm team today.

Your current career, company, position, accomplishments, compensation, and level of influence feel drastically different from your original dreams.

Recall for a minute where you thought you’d be?

What you thought you’d be doing?

Who you thought you’d be doing it for or with?

As a result you feel stuck playing minor league ball when you
know you were made for the Major Leagues.

You are right.  But that isn’t the whole story.

Interview CEO’s and ask

Did you know that if you started interviewing CEO’s, writers, directors, founders, owners, presidents, artists, (insert your example) that you look up to as Major League players you would encounter that they also feel some of these same sentiments?

Try it. You’ll be surprised at what you hear.

The difference between baseball and your life is that you have a choice to change it.

You are not as stuck as you think.

First, stop waiting for the call from the major leagues.

The cyclical cycle of anticipation and disappointment is not working.

Instead start your own team.

Stop playing ball by someone else’s rules.  You don’t believe me?  Buckle up……

Meet Jack @thegoodrun

NYC Digital Media guru by day and legendary musician by night and weekend @jackopierce.  Ask him if it’s exactly as he envisioned?

Meet Barry @Calxeda

Intel for twelve years thought cell phone chips should run rack servers instead.

Ask him how long he played for the farm team before he quit and started his own team?

Meet Jon @jondale

Ad-hoc consulting for years.  Quit and went and got an MBA from Seth Godin and launched Moolala.  Ask him how many farm team practices he feels like he’s attended?

Meet Matt 

Creating AutoCAD drawings of libraries in strip malls.
Quit and now decorates the downtown Denver downtown skyline with modern architecture.
Ask him how tall or unique a building he will need to design to feel he’s made it to “the show”?

The difference between playing on the farm team and major leagues is all in your head.

Welcome to the Show. You made it. Watch the Rookie Trailer.

What can you change in your thinking today?