Heap Your Efforts to Reach the Sky

You build a creative career like sandcastles at the beach. In your limited time on the coast, you can construct many smaller keeps, or one large fortress. The choice is yours, but so are all of the results that follow from it.

With smaller structures, all it takes is one errant footfall, or a tiny wave, and you’re beat. None of those tiny towers have mass enough to thwart competition or bad luck. Moreover, it’s unlikely that a string of modest manors will attract attention from a distance. Not if they can barely be seen.

So rather than build horizontally, build vertically. Devote your full attention to one titanic construction. Sure, it’s more difficult to commit to a singular aesthetic for a whole day at the beach. After all, they don’t make cookie-cutter buckets for castles of note. Instead, every heap is intentional; every extension a challenge. To build high, you need a vision. A mission.

But but what you lose in ease, you gain in durability. A stray volley ball or the ceaseless tide might tumble a portion of your work, but the rest will remain. What’s more, your continuous toil will inspire interest. Many have flipped a bucket in their day, but few have built a kingdom. They’ll want to understand why you’re so passionate about this one heap of sand and so disinterested in all the rest. And when they arrive, they’ll gladly offer up their most prized possession—their time.

So build tall, not wide.