Two weeks into the new baby lark and I’ve already brushed my teeth with E45 cream and spent 5 minutes trying to get the last spinach leaf out of a packet only to find it was the one printed on it!

Anyway, even with the lack of sleep and the constant needs my little bundle of love is throwing at me, she’s already teaching me a thing or two about being a creative - here they are.

You Are Unique

The first thing a newborn will teach you is that we are all unique. In the creative world there’s a lot of emulation and aspiring to be like others. However your biggest gift as a creative is being you - there isn’t another one of you on the planet and there never will be, so celebrate that as a creative. They are your eyes, your ears and it’s your voice, so make sure you don’t try and be someone else, it’s not meant to be that way.

Stay Hungry

Newborn babies do three things; eat, poop and sleep; but they are relentless feeders, they know they need to survive so they make sure you know they need feeding. Stay hungry as a creative, keep learning new things, meeting new people, never stop reading, reading manuals and watching videos - be the best you there is.

Some Of Your Stuff Is Going To Stink

My little one may be the most beautiful baby on the planet, but she is still able to product stuff that stinks to high heaven, in fact right now a lot of it.

When we first start out as creatives we produce a lot of stuff that stinks, but that doesn’t mean that that we should give up. As we grow and develop then there’s less of the stinkers and more of the success… which leads me to the next point

It’s OK To Need Help

Humility is the admitting we still have stuff to learn, that we can’t do it on our own. A newborn baby can’t walk to the fridge to get milk, they can’t change themselves, in fact they even need help when trying to get to sleep. There’s too many people who think they don’t need any help in the creative industry, at 48 and with over 30 years experience in the music industry I can tell you the more I learn the more I realise how little I know. I love having friends to help me and to help sow me the way - make sure you have them too.

Healthy Things Grow

The first milestone my wife had on the calendar for our little one was her two week weigh-in, not the kind a boxer has but the kind to see how baby is doing. In the early days it’s one of the ways of checking that baby is feeding and healthy. Healthy things grow, if you’re not growing then your not healthy.

If you take on board the first four points in this list; recognize your unique contribution, stay hungry, realize some of your stuff will stink and ask for help when you need it, then it’s likely that you’re going to grow your talent and skills.

You may be new to all this stuff, you may be a veteran, but one thing is for sure that there are some lessons we should never stop learning, lessons so fundamental a newborn can teach us.

PS: The pic is not my baby girl but a library shot.