How to succeed
Get off the fucking bus
In 2004, the New England School of Photography asked famous photographer Arno Minkkinen to give a commencement speech to students.
He gave them bad advice.
Minkkinen shared a theory about how to become successful, which he called the “Helsinki Bus Station Theory.” When you're starting out on a creative path, you and your peers are at the same central bus station. For the first few kilometres (the first few years of your career), all the buses share the same main roads through the city. They stop at all the same stops. And if you get off here, nobody will be impressed. You’ve only seen what everyone else has seen. And you’re making things others have already made.
The thing you should do, as Minkkinen put it, is "stay on the fucking bus." Eventually it will leave the main roads and chart a route of its own. You’ll be the only one left and you’ll arrive somewhere different. Someplace unique and distinguished. The world belongs to those who stay on the fucking bus.
It’s a nice metaphor. But here’s the thing: it confuses cause with effect. Staying on a bus long enough to achieve success is something people can only say they did with hindsight. When, in fact, "staying on the bus" was never their focus. That was never the point.
What actually happened was, the bus they were on was so perfect for them that they never wanted to get off it. And that explains their enduring commitment.
An example. I went to a retrospective of the German painter Gerhard Richter. This guy has been painting for like sixty years or something. And when you see his work, you cannot believe the volume of it. All the different styles. It's endless. It’s bananas1. I walked around feeling jaded. Like, "How the hell did he do all this?" "How," to use Minkkinen's lens, "did he stay on the effin’ bus so long, without getting bored? Or distracted? Or sabotaging himself?"
And then I figured it out. Richter couldn't not paint pictures.
JK Rowling can’t not write novels.
Novak Djokovic can’t not hit tennis balls.
People become successful not by "staying on a bus" at all costs, but by finding a bus they can't dream of leaving. Their success is incidental.
It's not "stay on the fucking bus" we should be teaching. It's "find a bus you don’t want to leave—and ride as many fucking buses as you can until you find it."
You can't expect to find the right bus first-time. That’s what Steve Jobs meant when he said, "You can only connect the dots looking backwards." It's what Stewart Butterfield—founder of Flickr and Slack—meant when he said, "Your first job is the one you have to do. Your second job is the one you want to do. And your third job is the one you were born to do." Just substitute jobs for buses.
You find the right bus by riding lots of them.
And you know it’s the right one when the work is easy. Inevitable. As inevitable as painting is for Richter, and writing is for Rowling.
But if you're having to force yourself often, or you've got recurring doubts, then there probably is no doubt that you're on the wrong bus.
So jump off! There’s plenty more back at the station. New routes. New views. New passengers. There’s whole new cities! Shit! There’s trains and helicopters and fucking submarines!
I do feel bad for those who can’t get off buses because of circumstances. Or because of unsupportive people around them, like pushy parents and small-minded peers.
But if you don’t like your bus and you can get off it, then for god’s sake do it. The world needs more Richters and Rowlings.
Thanks to Becky at , Lavinia at and Briana for the conversations and edits.
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It's the same with all great artists. When Turner died, they found 20,000 unseen drawings in his room. Picasso made 100,000 prints and engravings.
Love this idea Harrison. These lines really drove it home for me: "You find the right bus by riding lots of them. And you know it’s the right one when the work is easy. Inevitable. As inevitable as painting is for Richter, and writing is for Rowling. But if you're having to force yourself often, or you've got recurring doubts, then there probably is no doubt that you're on the wrong bus."
If you don't love the game you're playing, you're probably not going to be able to stay in it long enough to see your efforts pay off.
I love this. And it's interesting how "riding as many buses as you can" could be applied to a single endeavour as well. I remember having to try all these styles and approaches to writing just to find one that felt good to me. Writing, at the start, felt very sucky. But by riding on so many buses, I'm starting to discover what works for me and how I can make the whole experience effortless and fun.