Do you have a rival? Someone whose work makes you jealous? Or who you secretly want to beat at the next award show? When they do something that makes you wish you did it, do you throw out whatever you’re working on and start again? If not, find one. Your work might get better.
Brian Wilson had The Beatles. Since both the Beach Boys and The Beatles recorded for Capital, they got to hear each other’s albums before they hit record stores. Rubber Soul inspired Pet Sounds. Pet Sounds led to Sgt. Pepper’s.
Pablo Picasso had Henri Matisse. In fact a MoMA exhibit earlier this year focused on how each artist’s genius pushed the other to re-examine his own work.
You have got to be able to picture side by side everything Matisse and I were doing at that time. No one has ever looked at Matisse’s painting more carefully than I; and no one has looked at mine more carefully than he. Picasso told his biographer Pierre Daix.
The list goes on. Michelangelo had Raphael. Steve Jobs sparred with Bill Gates. Magic Johnson pushed Larry Bird. In every case these rivalries made both parties better, more inventive, more creative.
Rivalries can be competitive and bitter. One need only look at Hemingway and Fitzgerald or Gore Vidal and John Updike.
But they can be comparative and inspirational as well…
Finish reading at: http://edwardboches.com/every-creative-person-needs-a-rival
