When people ask me what it’s like to run a global love letter writing company, I tell them it’s the best and the worst thing ever. It’s the best because no rulebook exists and we are forced to create one. It’s the worst because no rulebook exists and we are forced to create one.

Four years in, my team and I have never been afraid to get creative. We have no choice but to stretch the boundaries and try a lot of crazy things with our community in the hopes that a few will stick. We all have to be ready to fail or look stupid or risk falling flat on our face for the projects we love and believe in.

That’s the thing I wish someone had told me years ago when I was afraid to step outside of the creative box: try out every idea. Don’t waste time trying to perfect your ideas, just execute and then work out the kinks later. Screw the rules and just do it.

"A creative life is any life where somebody consistently follows their curiosity more than their fear." - Elizabeth Gilbert

When you create things quickly and execute them even quicker you are forced to improve and rest on your community to provide constructive feedback. You are forced to ask for help and dedicate yourself to the improvement and refinement that comes after launching something new into the world.

It’s easy to keep something behind closed doors and never let other people see it. That’s how the fear of failure starts to ruin your creative process. Real leaders won’t necessarily be unafraid to put stuff out there but they won’t let that fear hinder them from executing and releasing.

The only way to make creativity a discipline in your life and your company is through the actual creation process. The world doesn’t benefit from your good ideas on paper, it benefits from the creation. So try out your ideas. Try out the ideas you think are winners. Try out the ideas that might be losers. Force yourself out of your comfort zone and make your own rulebook.

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Hannah Brencher is a TED Speaker and blogger who's dedicated her life and work to the brokenhearted. She founded the global organization More Love Letters in 2011 and cofounded If You Find This Email in 2015. Her memoir If You Find This Letter is now in bookstores across the country.

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