What, not How

At the end of a random Bob Ross episode, he dropped some prophetic wisdom. “Soon, how to paint won’t be the problem anymore. The hard part will be what to paint.” In context, he was simply marketing his books and certified instructors.

In our context almost 45 years later, this gives us a hint for how to thrive.

Decision-making, strategy, and creativity are the only differentiators in a saturated world.

Courses, products, equipment, AI, arbitrage, etc. can fill in the technical skills we lack. Anyone can do anything. The problem is now a matter of focus: what to do.

Back to Bob

If you’ve never seen Bob Ross, I’d highly recommend watching at least one of his episodes. It’s not just for the chill vibes or the jaw-dropping ease of producing a painting in just 23 minutes.

“Let’s start making some decisions,” he’ll say after blending the background colors. He’ll take a paint brush or a palette knife with a dark, scary load of paint on it.

There’s no sketch. There’s no visual plan. He just starts making decisions and goes with it.

Once you put that Van Dyke Brown on your light-blue sky, it’s gonna stay there.

It’s the decision-making that is so impressive to me as I watch Bob Ross do his thing. When you’re uncomfortable, unconfident, inexperienced in something, these decisions are paralyzing. Painting like Bob forces you to try; to put the paint on the canvas before you’re ready.

Why Art Helps the Modern Knowledge Worker

“Art” is a little triggering for many people, but I hope we can all let ourselves off the hook just a little bit in this section. Art is whatever you want it to be—can you draw? Great! Can you sing? Great! Can you set up the most beautiful accounting system? Great!

It all counts. Lean into your art.

Art is the practice of two things:
1. the expression or production of something
2. decision-making

In my high school AP Art class, we had a college student come talk to us about his experience as an art student. He gave me a secret that I have clung to.

“I always sketch in pen, because it teaches me how to be confident in what I draw.”

Ink is not forgiving. When you put down a stroke with a pen, it’s gonna stay there. I’ve almost never sketched in pencil (in my sketchbook) after that.

My sketchbook is my learning tool, my thinking tool. To get the most out of it, I use pen to force me to make decisions and then to work with the decisions I’ve made.

Even if a decision is irreversible, it’s usually not unworkable.

Being forced to make and work with decisions, especially at a faster pace than is typically comfortable is the perfect way to practice. The workplace is filled with decisions to be made. The people who are comfortable making tough decisions and taking risks end up in higher positions (usually).

Cyborg

Some technology is designed to remove the friction required to make “good” decisions. Good is relative, but in our case, I mean “intentional,” “productive,” or even “unencumbered.”

For example, getting stuck watching Instagram reels. Is the decision to stop when you want to easy or hard? Is the pull of the next video just a swipe away enough to keep you watching for even a minute longer than you intended?

The platform has a decision it wants you to make, so it puts in every possible trick to outweigh the decision to leave. In my experience, the more I hand over my decision-making, the harder it is to make decisions on my own.

I believe the cyborg will have to integrate art as much as technology in order to balance the decisions that technology takes.

All tech is opinionated. All tech makes some decisions for us. This isn’t inherently bad, but we must be aware of this.

Learning to make decisions and then work with them after they’re made will be the sought-after skill in the coming years—even more so than it is now.

Only question now is what will you do?

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