The Best Book on Creativity I’ve Ever Read

Hey, everybody loves a good book recommendation. And today I’m going to share with you a book I recently stumbled on, and I read over the span of, like, three days because it was so damn good. And I couldn’t believe I hadn’t found it sooner. And I can’t believe I’ve never heard anybody recommend this book. It is remarkable. It’s remarkable not only because of the quality of writing, which is astounding, but because book is a bit like an art project. It was written, it was designed, it was created by these amazing designers. And so you would assume that they’re going to have some pretty good visual sense.

But this is a book. It’s an experience beyond just the words, beyond what you’re consuming. It is a book on creativity, and it is the perfect manifestation of what it means to create something. The ideas in this book, which I’ll tell you this title of in just one moment, but the way that this book is written is kind of broken down into two parts. At the beginning of each chapter, there is a story that the writers who founded this company called the Good Effing Design Agency, each chapter at the beginning, it walks you through their story, their origin story, the things that they went through. And it’s an amazing, entertaining, incredible story, I think, that every entrepreneur and creator can relate to, because there’s just so many trials and tribulations and funny bits. Incredibly well written. But then the second part of the story, or each chapter is in these paragraph long little aphorisms, these little takeaway, these little nuggets of wisdom and insight that are very inspirational, very motivational.

And so the way that you can consume a book like this guy is you read it once all the way through. You get the story. You read all the little aphorisms, all the little motivational tidbits, and then you keep this book on your desk next to you at all times. And then when you’re about to start a deep work session or you’re struggling to find the energy, the motivation, now, what you do is you pull out the book, you look, you find yourself just kind of flipping through. You find an aphorism, you find yourself on a paragraph that gets you lit up, and you go, yeah, I’m ready to go now. So this book is called do the fucking work. Low brow advice for high level creativity. Now, let’s talk about the bear in the room here or the elephant in the corner, which is the f word.

The whole stick of this company, good fucking design agency, is that they pretty much put the word f in everything. Everything that they do. For instance, ask for effing help be effing. Flexible form follows effing function. So pretty much these trite little cliches that you’ve heard before, but then they hit different because of the application of this word, effing. So here’s my thoughts on curse words. I did a podcast on this a while ago. If you find yourself being offended by a word, first of all, that’s on you.
If you choose to be offended by a word, this inert thing that is really just designed to communicate an idea or an illicit, an emotion, if you find that offensive, that’s on you. Words are just words. They’re not good or they’re not bad. It’s what those words are used to communicate. If it’s the right word, then it will communicate the right emotion, the right idea to you. Now, you might disagree and say, like, some words are just, they’re nasty, they’re gross, they’re uncouth, uncivilized, whatever. Then this isn’t your book. That’s okay.
I don’t agree with that. I think all words are beautiful, and they have different applications. They’re tools to be used, not to be avoided. So the idea of do the fucking work, I love it. I love the use of this word because the f word is powerful. It grabs your attention. It elicits an emotion very strongly, and then it makes the words hit a little bit different. So let me read you guys.
I’m just going to pull at random one of these little things. I can’t find one. I keep getting on the stories. Let’s flip through. Stick with me. Okay? So give up effing control. Somewhere in the past, there’s a cigarette butt, empty bottle, half eaten cheesecake, discarded treadmill, or broken heart that proves you can’t always control yourself. So don’t try to control anyone else.
Let go. Give in. Cut loose. Back off. Seed. Relinquish, yield, release. If you hold on too tightly, you might just squeeze the life out of your partnerships. How about this one? Carve your own effing path.

Don’t follow the well trodden way. That adventure is all used up. The treasure is long gone. Turn into the weeds and climb over the problems others have chosen to go around. It’s supposed to be difficult and frightening. You’re supposed to get lost. That’s the point. This book is so good.

It is so good. I can’t recommend it highly enough. If you’re a creative or you want to be more creative, a book like this gives you that raw, gritty insights from people who have lived in the trenches that can help you. Because creativity is inherently difficult. You’re doing something that nobody has ever done before. That’s what it really means at the end of the day, to be creative is to create something that doesn’t exist, right? That’s hard. So anywhere that you can find a little bit of solace, any bit of motivation insight is well worth it. So I recommend this book.

Do the effing work. Lowbrow advice for high level creativity. This is by Jason Bacher, Brian Berge, and Jason Richberg. I totally butchered their names, but go check it out. You can get it, I think@gfda.com. Thegoodfuckingdesignagency.com and they got a great instagram as well. Highly recommend this. Now this book is a little bit expensive.

It’s like $25, but I think it is well worth its weight in gold. One of the best books I legit have ever read on the topic of creativity. I can’t wait to dive back into it. So hope this brings you a little bit of value, guys and gals. I’ll catch you in the next episode. But until then, stay happy, folks. My friends.