Do What You Can’t: An Inspirational Message for Creators

You can’t. You can’t be a photographer. You can’t make money taking pictures. You can’t capture good photos unless you have this camera, or this lens, or you go to this workshop. Aspiring photographers hear “you can’t” a lot… and Casey Neistat has a message for you: it’s total BS.

Neistat made his millions of followers, millions of dollars, and millions of views by doing what people said he couldn’t do. You can’t move to New York. You can’t be on TV. And, more recently, you can’t make the jump to a cable news company. Every step of the way, he’s built his life by doing what other people said he couldn’t do.

It’s the creative way, a willful ignorance or naiveté that you have to cultivate if you want to survive in a world of infinite negative feedback, constant criticism, and only fleeting moments of encouragement.

“Never forget, you don’t have to listen to anyone,” says Neistat. “Because in this new world, no one knows anything. The haters, the doubters, are all drinking champagne on the top deck of the Titanic, and we’re the f**king iceberg.”

The message is simple: keep creating. Keep doing the work. And if someone along the way tells you that “you can’t” do x, y, or z, you might consider taking it as encouragement. You just might be on the right track.