You never know what might happen when you make stuff

I was speaking to a young person about the importance of making stuff.

She’s an artist who one day hopes to make her living making art, but she’s plagued with worries about investing time in a project that won’t ultimately pay off.

I told her to put those thoughts aside and just work. Find inspiration. Relentlessly make art.

I started writing amusing lists in faculty meetings because my former principal was a monster, and my colleagues desperately needed to laugh. So I began filling a notebook with amusing lists, and somehow, over time, they began to tell a story.

Eventually, those lists (and more) became my fifth novel, “Twenty-one Truths About Love.”

But when I began writing my lists, I had no thoughts about their commercial value. I was simply being creative. Making stuff.

The same holds true when I told my first story onstage in New York City at a Moth StorySLAM back in July 2011. My plan was to simply perform, share a true story with an audience, maybe make them laugh, and walk away unscathed.

I had no idea that storytelling would change my life.

Last week, I consulted with the CEOs of two large tech companies and a longtime marketing client. I also conducted a workshop for a startup with whom I am a cofounder and worked with a group of YouTube personalities in Europe. I designed a storytelling workshop with Canyon Ranch for later this year and sent proposals to two other companies that want to work with me.

I also replied to a query about a word choice – foundered vs. floundered – in my upcoming book on storytelling and met with my team at Storyworthy – my storytelling company – to prepare for the launch of a new product.

And I delivered a TEDx Talk at Boston University on Saturday.

It was admittedly a busy week.

I envisioned nothing like this when I took the stage 13 years ago to tell a story. I went to New York to do something creative, and somehow, my life changed forever.

So be creative. Make stuff. Then make some more stuff. Trust that diligent, relentless, focused efforts will eventually produce results, even though they are still unimaginable.

Here’s one of my favorite examples of this:

Ajinomoto is the leading global supplier of MSG seasoning powder. In the 1990s, however, the company discovered that one of the byproducts of MSG production was a dielectric insulator.

Dielectric insulators can be found on every computer chip, separating and insulating the copper wires.

As a result, Ajinomoto has enjoyed a 90 percent market share in the dielectric film industry for the past three decades.

They have made a fortune on the stuff.

A company founded to produce a food product became one of the most important suppliers to technology companies around the world.

They also continue to make MSG.

This was not the plan when they first went into business long ago. It was simply a happy accident. The byproduct of making stuff.

Literally.

So make stuff. Be creative. Be relentless. It’s impossible to know where your work will take you, but I can promise you this:

If you’re not making stuff, you’ll never produce anything of value. There will be no happy accidents. You will not experience any unexpected surprises.

Good fortune only comes from good work. So make stuff.