Every once in a while, you get a Jordan Peele—a “new” writer on the scene who changes the game.

But even though he exploded onto the film scene with Get Out, Jordan had written countless lines of dialogue and shot hundreds of Hollywood-esque sketches as half of, for my money, the greatest sketch duo to ever do it, Key & Peele.

But you’d be forgiven if you didn’t see Key & Peele as practice for making horror films.

Bruce Lee famously said: “I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.”

Sketch comedy is practicing hundreds of film genres, two minutes at a time.

Casablanca, arguably the greatest script of all time, wasn’t written by someone who had been sitting on a brilliant idea for 20 years.

It was written by battle-hardened studio writers, in-house, factory-style workers responsible for pumping out 5 films a year.

Great work is seldom precious. It’s the result of continuously honing and refining the craft.

Better to write five films in a year than wait five to write one.

Stop watching the news.

“It’s my responsibility to be informed!” you say. Don’t worry, the endless chaos, tragedy, and hopeless depression will be waiting to fill your entire brain any time you’re ready.

Is it self-indulgent to focus on what you want to? Maybe.

But our focus may be the last "inch" we have.

From V for Vendetta: “An inch...it is small and it is fragile, but it is the only thing in the world worth having. We must never lose it or give it away. We must never let them take it from us.”

Back in the College Dropout days, when Kanye was still cool, he talked about doing “five beats a day for three summers.” The concept always stuck with me.

It’s not just something he did, it was a path—a prescription for those who wanted to master a skill.

This summer, I wrestled with two small children at home. In some ways, one of the hardest summers I’ve ever had, as my entire industry repeatedly turns itself upside down.

But in addition to watching two new life forms flourish, I got to feel something new.

I got to feel my favorite feeling of being alive: the feeling that only comes from experiencing the magic of technology.

I felt it playing the first game on a calculator. I felt it when I had my first synthesizer. I felt it when I edited my first video on tape in high school. I felt it the first time I owned turntables. I felt it when I learned the superpower of SEO. And now, I feel it with this magical new wave.

Is part of this time terrifying? Sure. But it’s also unbelievably exciting, like a dream come true in some ways.

…you’re not really learning.

Granted, we’re not talking about a torturous pre-med textbook that you have to fight through for a noble cause here.

We’re talking about the day-to-day of reading books and studying new things.

If you’re not excited by what you’re consuming, chances are you aren’t really learning anything of value to you.

When you can’t put something down, when you need to spend just a few more minutes, when you wake up eager to jot down that note so you don’t forget, that’s when you know you’re up to something real.

You need two things:

1. A media outlet
2. Your own AI