Hey :) 

Most of my work starts from a blank page.

Ideas, frameworks, workshops, posts, offers — a lot of it is creative work in the truest sense. Nothing there, then something there. 

At times it can feel overwhelming, and when I notice myself getting stuck, it’s almost always for the same reason: I’m trying to start too big. Too broad.

What helps me find a way in is the opposite move.

I pick a very specific place to start.
I get really small.
Then I grow out from there.

This shows up everywhere for me.

Writing is the obvious one. Any time an article feels heavy or awkward, it’s usually because I’m trying to talk about five or ten ideas at once. Every time I’ve written something decent, it’s because I chose one thing and stayed with it.

Photography taught me this years ago. If you’re not sure what the photo is about, stepping back rarely helps. Zooming in does. The closer you get, the clearer the idea becomes.

I think about this a lot through an idea from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig.

There’s a story about a student who’s asked to write an essay on the United Staes of America, and can’t get started. The exercise is to keep narrowing the focus — country, town, street, building — until eventually they’re told to write about a single brick.

One brick.
Not the building.
Not the street.
The brick.

The student goes from being unable to write a few hundred words…
…to writing thousands.

I heard this idea referred to as Pirsig’s Brick by Josh Waitzkin, Author of The Art of Learning, and once you see it, you start spotting it everywhere.

It’s the same move as asking, what’s the one thing worth focusing on?
It’s the same logic behind leverage and the 80/20 principle.
It’s the same reason constraints tend to produce better work than total freedom.

And it’s also what Seth Godin talks about with the smallest viable audience.

Instead of trying to make something for everyone, you deliberately choose the smallest group who would genuinely care — and you make it for them.

Which feels like the same idea again, just in a different context.

One brick.
One reader.
One place to start.

I’ve started using this as a personal cue.

If I’m procrastinating…
If I’m avoiding starting…
If something feels vague or overwhelming…

I ask: Where could I zoom in?
What’s the smallest useful starting point here?

Not “write about everything I know.”
But “write about this one moment, this one insight, this one brick.”

You can always zoom back out later.
But you can’t start from everywhere.

This is very much me thinking out loud.
I don’t feel like this idea is finished — but it’s become a frame I lean on almost daily.

When in doubt, I try to remember: small first. specific first. then grow.

Pirsig's Brick. 

🗣️ 👀

Chris.