There’s a common piece of advice that says “Never meet your heroes, because they’re sure to disappoint you.”

Personally, I couldn’t disagree more.

Over the years, I’ve gotten to meet a lot of my heroes: bestselling authors, prolific creators, and all sorts of other cool people who are putting incredible work into the world. Almost without fail, these people have turned out to be even cooler in real life than I’d built them up to be in my head.

But they’ve also disappointed me, and that's been a very encouraging thing.

Here’s what I mean: when you see a person’s public-facing persona, you’re only seeing what they choose to show you. This means you’re looking at finished work that’s had all the rough edges sanded off and has been polished to perfection. And you’re looking at it from its best angle!

Even when creators share behind-the-scenes looks and mistakes, they’re still choosing which mistakes to show you, and they’re almost always sharing the ones that paint them in the most flattering light.

But when you meet these creators in real life, you get to see the real person. You get to see the flaws and mistakes in real time, without any screening or filters.

• I’ve read first drafts from bestselling authors that were riddled with spelling and grammar mistakes, bad writing, and circular logic.
• I’ve met creators who admitted they weren’t very good at a particular skill (welding, programming, 3D design, etc…) so they outsourced that to a friend or colleague.
• I've seen projects that looked amazing online but turned out to barely work in real life.

Some people find this to be a letdown. The hero they’d built up in their head turned out to be... GASP!... just a regular person! They peeked behind the curtain and found the Wizard of Oz was just an old man pulling some levers.

But I don’t see it that way. On the contrary, I find it incredibly inspiring.

Because if these creators, whose finished work I find so amazing, are actually just flawed human beings like the rest of us… that means the rest of us are capable of making amazing work too.

• When I see a bad first draft from someone who's sold millions of books, I realize that my bad first drafts don't disqualify me.
• When I see creators who ask for help, I realize it's okay for me to ask for help too.
• And when I see projects that look better online than in real life, I don't feel so bad when my own projects stop working once the camera turns off.

So here's my advice: Meet your heroes. Let them disappoint you.

Then use that disappointment as fuel to go out and make your own work. Do it the same way they do: starting with something small, half-baked, even mediocre... and then sticking with it til it's good enough to fool people into thinking you're a hero.

Happy Friday, friends. Make it a good one.

Kyle Scheele
Helping Launch Better Ideas, Faster
​www.KyleScheele.com​

P.S. My next book, How Ideas Work, started with this exact same premise: I met my heroes, interviewing creators from all walks of life and digging into the nitty gritty of their actual creative processes. Along the way I discovered something unexpected: every single idea goes through the same four-step process. Once you learn that process, creativity stops feeling like a mystery and starts feeling like something you can control.

If you want to learn how that process works, the book is available for preorder now.​