The book I read last month (august 2016) was The Icarus Deception: How High Will You Fly? Book by Seth Godin

First, this book calls your inner creative person, and it is trying to wake up the sleeping artist inside of you.

We are brainwashed by industrialism to playing it safe, not taking risks, and not flying too high, follow your boss instructions and shut down you inner voice. The book is about the other way, the ART way, it will challenge you in ways that may surprise you.

As someone who loves ART, this book challenges me and made me think through it’s chapters, about the fear from making ART and facing the world, the fear from critics and rejection. Each time I opened the book I felt like it’s the right time to read that set of pages.

If one take away: Make better ART (work).

Everyone knows that Icarus’s father made him wings and told him not to fly too close to the sun; he ignored the warning and plunged to his doom. The lesson: Play it safe. Listen to the experts. It was the perfect propaganda for the industrial economy. What boss wouldn’t want employees to believe that obedience and conformity are the keys to success?

But we tend to forget that Icarus was also warned not to fly too low, because seawater would ruin the lift in his wings. Flying too low is even more dangerous than flying too high, because it feels deceptively safe.

The safety zone has moved. Conformity no longer leads to comfort. But the good news is that creativity is scarce and more valuable than ever. So is choosing to do something unpredictable and brave: Make art. Being an artist isn’t a genetic disposition or a specific talent. It’s an attitude we can all adopt. It’s a hunger to seize new ground, make connections, and work without a map. If you do those things you’re an artist, no matter what it says on your business card.

Godin shows us how it’s possible and convinces us why it’s essential.

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