I love peering through the lens of a camera that's managed to capture an artist in their raw and candid glory. The intensity of the focus is soul-piercing. My fascination comes from the days of working in a kitchen at a resort in Lake Louise with Chef Michel. A gruff French man who greeted me each morning with the snap of his tongue, "the fucking pretty boy from Ontario." I'm not sure he ever learned my name.

I grew up in the golden age of kid’s movies. Whether it was a quest to save your town in The Goonies, making contact and befriending a stranded alien in ET, or encountering your parents as you travel through time and are faced with making sure they fall in love or you'll cease to exist in Back To The Future. The stories inspired a life of adventure, exploration and uncovering the person you didn't know you were capable of becoming.

Yet somewhere along the journey, you probably lost touch with that creative kid. Here’s how to reconnect with your sense of creativity and live your best life.

How long will you put off what you are capable of doing just to continue what you are comfortable doing? Author James Clear posed that question in a recent newsletter. I felt like Dorothy entering the Emerald City, and the booming voice of Oz the Great and Powerful had just asked me what business I had in being here. There's a life I dream of that is quite different from the one I'm living. You too? Where does your yellow brick road lead?

Perfection is the enemy of progress. Over the last two years, I've written nearly 200,000 words. That's enough to fill an 800-page book. Yet, if you had sat me down with the expectations of churning out a Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by years end, I would have had a melt-down. Hell, there's a lot of weeks where putting out this blog feels like I'm trying to tackle a giant.

What would it mean for your sense of purpose to go to bed feeling effective and knowing your work has contributed to the world? Does it feel like an impossible dream? We're not talking crossing off a couple of things from your to-do list. We're talking about following through on things that are actually important to you. Priorities that light you up.

You could map out where you'd like to be in your career in the next couple of years. You could start a side hustle. You could spend the free time you have to do things with the people you love. But first, let's accept the fact that creating a life where this is possible is going to take some hard work. But there's a right way and wrong way to go about doing it.

I doubt you have many friends who understand what you're trying to do. They pass your business off as a hobby. It's anything but that to you. It's your ticket to freedom. You've tasted what it feels like to not answer to anyone but yourself. It's having the creative freedom to show up as your unapologetic self. There's something you can't explain to people who've never gone all in. Once you've found something you love doing, the money is secondary. It's like a sweet bonus. But the catch twenty-two is the obvious need to make money. How do you find the drive to keep going when you still don't see the light at the end of the tunnel?