☀️ Why Quantity Leads to Quality

A few years ago, I learned about a parable about creative work that haunted me for days.

It goes like this:

“[A] ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups.

All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality.

His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would bring in his bathroom scales and weigh the work of the “quantity” group: fifty pounds of pots rated an “A”, forty pounds a “B”, and so on.

Those being graded on “quality”, however, needed to produce only one pot — albeit a perfect one — to get an “A”.

Well, came grading time and a curious fact emerged: the works of the highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity.

It seems that while the “quantity” group was busily churning out piles of work – and learning from their mistakes — the “quality” group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay.” — from the book Art & Fear

It haunted me for days because of how excited the story made me feel.

Since I was a little boy, I don’t think I ever was that interested in being the best at something.

But I did want to be good at a lot of things.

I always knew I wanted to be a generalist and a multi-passionate creative where I could do many things well with many skills, confidence, and authenticity.

And it felt like this parable gave me a roadmap and permission to become this version of myself.

I knew then that the key lies in having the discipline, courage, and consistency to keep practicing and sharing my work.

And that’s what I’ve been doing over and over again.

When I lost my job in 2020 and had no idea what I wanted to do, I decided to learn no-code and ended up building & shipping 12 different web products in 12 weeks.

When I decided to start drawing abstract art in 2021 as a way of healing of inner child and learning to express my inner world, I drew for at least 30 minutes every day and shared every single piece of my work.

When I realized I wanted to learn to be more comfortable talking in front of the camera after someone challenged me, I have been posting a video of myself sharing something almost every day.

When I made the big decision to pivot out of tech after 9 years and became a mindset & creativity coach this past March, even though I didn’t have any credentials or had that much experience doing that particular kind of coaching, I still offered free 60-minute coaching sessions to whoever was interested and have since coached 60+ individuals and helped them get unstuck in their life.

Hearing that parable and putting it into practice across multiple areas in my life have crystallized this truth for me:

The path to doing anything has always been about focusing on the frequency of the work.

If you can show up at regular intervals, that is aligned with your neurtypical or neurodivergent tendencies, without worrying about the results or outcomes— it can actually lead to better results.

Quantity leads to quality, who knew?

What's one area of your life where you could benefit from focusing more on the process rather than the outcome?