Going Gordon Ramsay...

In our current popular culture of creation, many pundits often extol to the virtues of making more and more content all of the time, or about making things as big and ornate as possible in order to break through in the market. I've done so myself in the past and sometimes still do fall prey to this kind of thinking. Every time that I catch myself doing so, I take a deep breath and pull back. Then, I go Gordon Ramsay on it's ass. 

If you've ever watched "Kitchen Nightmares" or "Nightmare Kitchens", both starring three Michelin star winning chef Gordon Ramsay, you might have some idea of what I'm talking about. In each episode, Ramsay is confronted with a failing restaurant. When tasked with saving the business, one of the first things he does in almost every single episode is to cut down the menu to a very small and incredibly high quality few recipes. 

These restaurants, the ones that are failing miserably I mean, all seem to be trapped in the maze of menu expansion, many with thirty plus dishes coming out of the kitchen on any given night. By cutting everything down to ten absolutely solid meals, Chef Ramsay is able to bring into focus what is scattered. He's saying "Here are these ten things..now let's do them better than anybody else." While I'm using food here, this is, like many things I talk about on this show, completely applicable to all forms of art or creativity. 

Cut things down to their most condensed form. What is the project really about? What is it's species? What is it's genre? Execute to the highest extent of your ability on less things. Because if you do, those fewer things will count a whole hell of a lot more than a million half baked limps across the finish line. 

Remember the goal here is to make something worthy of attention. Ingenuity and execution is what earns it.