Stop trying to be a popular content creator-- become excellent at your craft instead.
What Michael Jackson teaches us all about artistic excellence, integrity and devotion.
While others are making slop, please make something that will give me full body chills, ok?
Like many homes around the world, my family has Michael Jackson fever right now.
We watched the Michael biopic with our kids recently, and then ‘This Is It’, and every day we’re playing his music — even on vinyl.
While driving in the car, kids in the back, husband driving, me in the front changing songs per requests, my husband and I will say to each other at least twice, “It’s just insane how many hits he had.”
I’ve been quiet in my own creative process over the last week — resting, restoring, and properly wintering with my kids. But I have been thinking a lot about Michael Jackson and the rare excellence he embodied.
I’ve been thinking a lot about that line in the movie where he’s laying in the pool with his brothers and they ask, “What are you doing, Michael?”
“Channelling,” he says.
“If God can’t give the ideas to me, he’ll give them to Prince.” (I’m paraphrasing that bit).
My kids initially thought he said he was “chilling,” because that makes much more sense to little kids than “channelling,” but it opened up a great convo.
I explained to them how we have to make space for ideas — we have to live in a way that is not relentlessly distracted so that we can hear. We spoke about how big ideas don’t come from us, but from a godly intelligence even greater than we can fathom, and that we get to catch them, trust them, and bring them to life.
This is nothing new to you and to me. And I mean, you might get “Big Magic” by Elizabeth Gilbert vibes now, but let’s park that — we are in untouchable Michael Jackson territory here.
We’ve spoken to the kids about excellence, and what it takes. About commitment, and what it takes. About the creative pursuit, mastery, and integrity.
We talk about his childhood, his work ethic, his father and mother, family dynamics, and honestly? We go deep into even how his physical symptoms reflect the conflicts he would’ve been experiencing.
There is so much richness to talk about. (Including the darker stuff surrounding him and yes, the suspiciousness of how he died. I try to keep a lot of that from the kids but I also am raising aware and astute little people).
My whole Instagram feed is MJ videos now and I’m not mad about it. It’s a nice break from all the slop.
And it has me thinking about the difference between true, masterful craftsmanship and creativity that is just trying to keep up.
There won’t ever be another Michael Jackson — you know why? Because people are too distracted to devote their entire lives to becoming a rare kind of excellent. Instead, people want to be popular. They want to keep up with the trends. They become copycat artists without even knowing it. Rather than get really, really, really good at the god-given gifts within, we become averagely good at whatever is hot.
We abandon novels because wow! OK, let’s learn to talk into the camera.
We spend more time writing carousels than books.
We spend more time building an aesthetic Instagram feed than a legacy body of work.
No, there won’t ever be another Michael Jackson because a whole generation or two have confused creative brilliance with social media popularity.
I believe that in order to be truly excellent, in order to be in a league of your own, you cannot make social media “your whole thing.”
Your art — your craft — needs to be your whole thing. Then, you post once or twice a week to tell the world about it — or someone else does.
This is the trap. People equate creativity to social media. Success to popularity. People aren’t trying to make things that give us FULL BODY CHILLS anymore. It’s all about reach, engagement, coolness.
I don’t want your 7-second hook.
I want the thing you spent 5 years on.
I want the god-given gift that you nurtured so well, with such quiet integrity and devotion… people meet God when they hear it, or read it.
We are so full of average slop and so starving for masterpieces.
We can create things so quickly now, an instant dopamine hit as people tell us WOW THAT LANDED TYSM… we lack the discipline to go quiet and make something completely and utterly brilliant.
We have confused what it means to be an artist with what it means to be a content creator. What happens if Instagram crashes or you post something naughty and get banned? Will your body of work remain a legacy? Or did you spend your entire creative life just building a page on an app?
Please, for the love of God, stop trying so desperately to be popular and relevant and even polarising on purpose….. and become excellent.
Show us what God put inside of you that is ONLY in you and in nobody else.
If your thing is words, stop rushing Substack pieces. Rather than try to grow fast, write pieces that take time… that you would be so PROUD to pin at the top of your page because you know you created a masterpiece.
Write the book. Chip away at it if you have to. Let it take a while. Make it so excellent that you feel like the finishing of it is a personal handshake between you and God. A job well done. Even if it doesn’t become a NYT best seller — it is excellent. The excellence itself is worth it.
Let me tell you a secret about the book industry. People PAY for best seller status. They use all kinds of strategies to get that title. It doesn’t mean that their book is excellent.
Popularity does not equal excellence.
Relevance does not equal excellence.
Pay attention to your favourite artists… do they always have their Instagram stories highlighted? Is there always a fresh new thing for you to watch? Are they documenting their days and making regular content, or are they hidden away in a studio making something that will outlive any algorithm? Something that their kids and grandkids can hold? Something untarnished by the ever-changing demands of an algorithm?
Too many people are making courses and digital products because it’s easier and faster, and yes, that does a job, don’t get me wrong.
But what is it that you are yearning to make the most?
Are you making a PDF when you really want to open a bookstore?
Are you learning funnels when you really want to write the damn book?
Are you learning 12 skills instead of becoming excellent at the thing that your soul is most naturally gifted at?
Are you trying to keep up with the internet circus instead of quieting enough to realise that you have jumped on a travellator, it’s moving fast, and you haven’t stopped to ask where it’s going?
Are you actually enjoying your creative life right now? Is it yours? Or is it a copycat version of someone else’s?
Are you letting AI touch the work of yours that is sacred?
Are you doing anything with excellence?
Or is it all about quantity? Popularity? Trying to make things that will hit?
Where has your personal relationship with your creativity gone? Where has it been hijacked?
It takes a lot of discipline to stay in your own lane right now. It is so tempting to try to keep up, do what’s cool, not get left behind…
But does any of it mean anything to you?
Are you building something you’re proud of?
I want to see your excellence.
The world is full of average. The world is so full of same same content and millions of people jumping on the same trends.
Too many people use their precious creativity to pour into social media, rather than create according to the longing of their soul.
Michael Jackson is a masterclass in rare excellence. Our generation will never create masterpieces and legacy if we funnel all of our creative genius around instagram.
Not everyone is meant to make digital courses and personal brands— some people are meant to write novels, music or art that sends literal chills down people’s spines for generations.
I hope we know someone as EXCELLENT as Michael Jackson again. I mean, don’t get me wrong, there are great, great artists — we all know that.
But very few have the discipline to pursue excellence in a world that rewards popularity and relevance.
When I was growing up, eldest daughter of 4 siblings, one of my younger sisters had bad behavioural issues. She would throw almighty tantrums wherever we’d go and we’d often have to leave in the middle of a dinner — like one time we were at Pizza Hut, which was a special treat for us. My brother, probably 6 at the time, had to carry this sister under her arms while she was kicking and screaming out of the restaurant while mum went and got the car.
Eventually, my mum told my sister that she would buy her a toy each week that she didn’t throw a “wobbly” (our word for tantrum).
I saw this as a massive injustice and I told her. I said, “Mum, why does the poorly behaved child get rewarded with a toy for not being poorly behaved, while the well behaved children get nothing?”
She would say, “Peta, goodness is its own reward.”
Still to this day I bring it up to my mum and say, “Mum, this was such BS.” She laughs. She knows it was. But she was desperate.
Goodness is its own reward, sometimes.
But do you know what really is its own reward?
Excellence.
Holding a hardcover book that could’ve been a downloadable PDF? That is its own reward.
Screw paying for best seller status. I mean, how lame is it that people care more about having that in their bio than they care about actually making something of impeccable quality?
I made my recent Body Luxury book in a limited, luxury edition because EXCELLENCE matters more to me than popularity ever will, and this has been my motto my entire “career.”
Popularity might tickle. Fast dopamine hits might jolt you for two minutes.
Making something EXCELLENT? That sustains the soul.
My advice to you, if you want it…. Take some time to read the biographies, watch the biopics, or just read about the creative processes of people you really admire for their excellence.
Be reminded of what is possible when you are guided by artistic integrity and excellence, and not by popularity and relevance.
Report back to me when your spark comes back. And also? I have two things you might want. These are things I made that are digital — however, I am working on putting my creative teachings into something excellent, a 6th book.
Honest: Creative Integrity in a Performative World. 118-word book.
Territory: Take Back Your Creative Territory and Come Alive Again. 3-hour class.