Create or Hate: Successful People Make Things

by Dan Norris

Most of us have always wanted to make something, but for any number of reasons haven’t. Maybe you used to make things as a child, but stopped some time into adulthood.

What is that something for you? Writing a book? Creating a blog? Learning photography? Starting a podcast? Launching a business?

This book exists for only one reason, to help you create that something.

We are all creative — there is a creator in you.

But there is also a force called Hate, which will work against your creativity and stop you from making things.

Hate can be controlled, and overpowered and your creative side can be nurtured and grown.

This book will show you how.

Genres: Business, Self Help, Nonfiction, Entrepreneurship, Writing, Personal Development

108 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 1, 2016

Reviews

[Noah Nichols]

This was a very quick read, but it was such a motivating piece for me. From the moment I began reading Create or Hate, author Dan Norris was entirely exempt from the well-worn nonsense that bubbles out of the pores of other self-help writers currently plying their trade. I loved the direct nature of this book. There are so many uplifting and quotable quotes within here—whether you're a struggling novelist, a painter, an actor—or even if you're just a person who hates your crappy day job with a burning passion, there is absolutely something here for you to reap mental benefits from. I promise you! Sometimes I allow that bastard nemesis Hate to lock me into a submission hold when it comes to forward progress, but I try my damnedest to get to the ropes and make a Hogan-like comeback (pro wrestling analogy). What this author does (and what he does so well) is attempt to have you focus primarily on YOURSELF.

Don't pay attention to the other cars on that jam-packed highway of creation. Stay in your lane, make something of yourself, and if it doesn't pan out for you, oh well! At least you tried, at least you did your best. And that's the best message to take away from this book. Thrive to maintain your drive. Or else you're barely alive. Feeling like you're dead isn't fun. So, go and do that mind grind already.

Here's a personal message to those of you who dream to do: no matter what creative field you're playing in right now, keep doing it. Don't falter. You have a talent that needs to be fully realized before you aren't here anymore.

All in all, this is just a powerful little number and I can't say enough about the lasting effect it has had on me. It's recommended for people who beat themselves up far too often, and for all of the people who feel like they're never "quite there yet" regardless of whatever it is that they do with their creativity....so basically, Create or Hate is highly recommended for everybody in this move-move-move, modern world.

[Em]

I like the idea that you should spend as much time creating as you do consuming.

[Cristian Tăbăcitu]

You know how you often regret reading an online article, because despite its title and source, there was zero new information there? Just the same crap you find online, regurgitated into another form? Yeah, well, that’s what this is.

The author has spent so little time crafting this, that it’s actually sad he calls this a book. It’s just three bad blog posts. I create bad stuff all the time, but man, this is something else.

[Saeed Ramazany]

نمی‌گم کتاب بدی بود، ولی مطمئنم خوب نبود و حتی شاید کمی پایین‌تر از متوسط.
اصلا و ابدا عمیق نبود. هر چی به ذهنش اومده بود همین طوری نوشته بود و واقعا کل ایده‌ی ربط دادن تنفر به همه چیزی که مقابل خلق کردن می‌تونه باشه درنیومده بود. بعضی جاها جدا الکی چسبونده بود.

ایده‌ی کتاب اینه که اگه چیزی رو خلق نکنی، یواش یواش نفرت جاش رو تو زندگیت میگیره و باید هی در حال آفریدن باشی.

خوبیش اینه که زود میشه خوند. من تو اتوبوس بین شهری و تو ۱ونیم ساعت خوندم.

[Łukasz Tenerowicz]

This can serve as an example of what size motivational books should have - I've read this book in about 1.5h. This is absolutely enough to present and explain an idea. On the other hand, if it's not for you, you haven't lost much time and money. I call that win-win :D

I'm happy, that I've read that book. The concept, that you shouldn't look at others, just focus on creating, was something I needed to read.

[Hamid]

کتابی کم حجم و کم مطلب.....شاید بشه گفت لب مطلبش این بود که بجای این دست و اون دست کردن، کاری رو شروع کنید و زیاد دنبال دلیل و بررسی و ... نباشید. بعد از کمی جستجو و مشخص شدن مسیر، کار رو آغاز کنید. بیشتر از مقداری که مصرف میکنید(اطلاعات بدست میارید، مطالعه میکنید، از شبکه های اجتماعی استفاده میکنید و ...) خودتان خلق کنید(مطلب بنویسید، پست بگذارید و کسب و کارتان را شروع کنید) این حرف کلی این کتاب هست

[Ali Shahab]

‏«خلق یا نفرت» نوشته‌ی دن نوریس، کتابی کوچک و روان درباره‌ی این‌که بزرگ‌ترین مانع تلاش برای تحول زندگی نیروی درونی است به ‌نام «نفرت» که باعث مسمومیت روح‌ خودمان و دیگران می‌شود. راه غلبه بر نفرت، خلق کردن دائمی چیزهای نو - حتی کوچک - است. اگر به انرژی مثبت و انگیزه برای به راه افتادن در مسیر تحقق رؤیاهاتون نیاز دارید، این کتاب گزینه‌ی خوبی است. ترجمه‌ی کتاب هم عالی است.

[Natalie]

*4.5 stars*

[Andrew]

Short and to the point - get out of your way and create more! Doesn’t matter how you feel or what it is, just start creating. Creating begets creating and over your creations get better. Start creating as hobby, not a ‘passion business’ or whatever. It’s not going to be perfect, it never will be.

If you want a fire lit under your ass for creating more, check this book out! I loved it and will be recommending this regularly to others

[Shonda]

I owe a big THANKS

Thanks to my friend Janene who recommended this book to me! I got so much from this and I could see why she wanted me to read it. Lately I’ve been guilty of consuming more than creating. I’m now inspired to turn that around.

[Breanna Kusnierczyk]

Last week I was painting the house, ignoring my aches and pains; because as always I love to suffer for my art. All the sudden I felt a ‘POP!’ in my right shoulder.


It started hurting a month or two ago and I just kept telling myself, eh you’re sore. Of course you are. You’ve been creating like a mad woman! Feeling proud of myself as I weaved a tale of aptitude around the fire being released from my shoulder I continued to paint my living room ceiling. ‘POP!’ Arm dies. It’s going on a week of dead arm now. 😢. Doctor thinks I may have torn my rotator cuff.


In the meantime I found myself reading this book entitled, Create or Hate by @thedannorris. A quick, captivating read I recommend checking out. Bonus for those of you who follow me on Goodreads you’ll find a lot of @austinkleon referenced in this book. And you know how much I love him!


In the meantime, I have a note for the author of this book based on the recent events described above. You should let me write an additional chapter that we can nestle between ‘Am I good enough’ and ‘Shut the fuck up and enjoy greatness.’ I shall call it, “chill the fuck out.” It will discuss the limitations surrounding your Hate sabotaging your creativity through over exertion caused by perfectionism and a drive for greatness. Contact me and we’ll get started. 👋😉.

[Brian Sullivan]

Create or Hate is about living or hating the creative flow within you. A simple book it inspires you to get on with the creativity that is part of you, if you stop telling yourself you cant, with a few tools to go with it. Perhaps the helpful tool chapter could be expanded. Yet its charm is in being imple and to the point.

[Somayeh]

این کتاب برای افرادی که کلی ایده دارن ولی ترس از شروع مانع پیشرویشون میشه عالیه؛ ترجمه روانی داره و کاملا ملموسه مثال هاش..

[Sandra]

The title is intriguing, but the content is lacking. I find it interesting that the author shields himself from critique with his primary premise. While he deserve credit for creating a book, his work lacks depth. He’s had interesting experiences, but I hope he will reflect on them more deeply to uncover some hidden gems that he can write about next time. I applaud the author for acknowledging that luck, self-salesmanship, and networking play a more than substantial role in success within our current culture. Personally, I attribute this trend to the decline in the quality of education in the US, making it harder for people to distinguish substance from hype. Illiteracy in reading difficult books that have stood the test of time prevails in theses days.

I'm relieved that the author has his 97% failure rule in place and is open to constructive criticisms that will hopefully guide him towards more valuable insights. Teaching is a whole other skill from relating one’s story and is generally hard won but keep it up dear writer and be sure the positive people who surround you also have expertise and wisdom. With good teachers you can learn to be a good teacher. We need more really good teachers!

[Sahraoui Chaieb]

Useless

I wanted to read this book because of curiosity. I was disappointed. It was mostly a marketing tool for his seven days startup from start to finish. Besides being a self praising book it's a spit copy of pressfield's War of Art. Pressfield came up with the word hate which the author used as his main subject: Pressfield wrote, page 127 of his kindle edition "noncreative people hate creative people." Also the author made false claims: in page 43 he mentioned that hard work does not pay off. It's the way you do it. In page 61 he justifies the 5$ cup of coffee. In page 64 he says that he doesn't watch the news. I wonder how can he follow the trends. And in page 75 he consider Kanye West as a role model. Also somewhere he wrote that he prefer writing to reading. I wonder what happened to good writers are good readers.
This book is useless. Pressfield is good enough with a better prose and no self- praise and no Kanye west as a model to follow. One star is the most I can give.

[Héctor Iván Patricio Moreno]

Very inspiring and action-oriented book.
I really like the pragmatism put in the writing that invites you to action and gives practical advice about how to act.

Also, thinking about the barriers to creating something as an entity to defeat helps one to focus the efforts on something.

I will take action in the next subjects:
- Being negativity aware and looking actively for people or oneself being negative
- Stopping to criticize severely others, because creating even the most insignificant thing is harder than only criticize.
- Even what I consume with what I produce.
- Create high-quality and valuable things for others in a consistent way.

[Richard Tubb]

Create or Hate is a short, yet powerful read from Dan Norris.

The author talks about the need to create more than you consume - be it writing, building, or wherever your skills lie - and to resist hate, the antithesis of creating.

The book explores what might be holding you back from creating, and offers up advice on overcoming this resistance.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and as writer, blogger and content creator, found it inspiring. I can see this being a book I return to when I need to reinvigorate my creativity.

[Shivansh Chaudhary]

A short read with quickly digestible and actionable content!

This book was recommend to me by Amazon and I finished reading it in two hourly sittings! What I like most about this book is that it's short but full of actionable advise and suggestions. The content flows seamlessly and serves the purpose of getting the reader inspired to make something pretty well! I highly recommend this book to anyone looking for some pep talk and motivation to create or make something, anything.

[Roxanne]

Some good ideas and positivity. Definitely motivating, but what if your goal isn’t really starting a business or making money? Has some great concepts such as just getting used to failing as “course correcting” and learning rather than being a total loser, which is how people tend to feel and think. It was good for some perspective and I will likely read some similar books with more substance now.

[Jeff Hennore]

Gets the Engine Running

Great book! Norris does a fine job in breaking down ways hate can creep into one’s mind, and the detrimental effects it has on their creativity. The book was a simple read, to the point that you can finish it in one sitting. With that in mind, I’d recommend it as I am confident that it will get your creativity juices flowing. Thanks Dan!

[Dragos Triteanu]

Very good book for people looking for a mindset change

The book is downright awesome.
Easy tonread, short and offers good guidence for people trying to get out of the 'Hate' style of thinking.
The target audience seems to be comprised of people who feel like making a positive impact on their life.


Loved the analogy, cherish ed the words, praised the author! :D

[Becky]

A quick and jaunty book on overcoming barriers to creativity. Steven Pressfield and Elizabeth Gilbert have both done this with far more eloquence and depth while this book is intended to be just a quick shot:

"This was a short book. It's [sic] only purpose was to inspire you to make something today.

Go and do it."

[Emmanuelle]

A rather succinct book, easy to read with nice quotes but in short, even if it boosts us to write, it is the repetition in the form of 2 other concepts of all the principles of personal development. I will even talk about copyright that is obvious (no personal research by the author). Go on your way

[Af Asghari]

خلق یا نفرت
قبل از اینکه این کتاب رو بخونم دیدم نسبت به تعریف نفرت متفاوت بود و وقتی چهره های متفاوت نفرت رو شناختم انگار خودم رو بهتر شنخاتم مسیر زندگی روشن تر شد و دن نوریس با راه کارهای ساده و مشخص راههای غلبه برنفرت و رشد خلاقیت رو نشونم داد.
این کتاب فرای کتابهای انگیزشی و معمول بازار هست. و اگر در راه کارافرینی قدم برداشتید حتما این کتاب رو بخونید

[Jolene Ko]

“Create more than you consume”

I really enjoyed how this book is short and sweet. Author discusses certain types of “emotions” (using that term loosely) that hinders our desires to create. Once we know what is holding us back, then we’ll have no excuses then.

The take home message is to “create more than we consume”.

[Muhammad Muhsin]

Short inspiring read

This book is structured like a collection of blog posts and contains quotes from different people after each chapter heading. Very inspiring and will give you the permission (or push) to start creating.

[Taylor]

My favorite part about this book is the author's focus on creating regardless of the obstacles that might be in the way. He's walked the walk in his own life by having launched multiple successful business and written four books. Now I gotta go create something... :)

[Courtney]

This book was very motivating and short enough to read within an hour. Some of it was repetitive I imagine for his own marketing of other books and products but the overall message was wonderful and I would recommend that anyone read it for motivation and purpose.

[Ney Guerrero]

A short book that aims to quickly wake the creator inside each one of us... and I think it does fulfill that goal.

Before beginning to read the book, find somethings you want to create, after reading I'm positive you'll start at least one.

[Pablo Porras]

Good and motivating quick read

The chapters were short and to the point.
I really like quotes so having them at the beginning of each chapter was a nice way to get into the topic.
Perfect read while commuting