“Embrace the importance of now, and refuse to allow the lull of comfort, fear, familiarity, and ego to prevent you from taking action on your ambitions…The cost of inaction is vast. Don’t go to your grave with your best work inside of you. Choose to die empty.”
Most of us live with the stubborn idea that we’ll always have tomorrow to do our most important and valuable work. We fill our days with frantic activity, bouncing from task to task, scrambling to make deadlines and chase the next promotion. But by the end of each day we’re often left asking ourselves “did the work I do today really matter?” We feel the ticking of the clock, but we’re stuck in first gear, unsure of the path forward and without a road map to guide us.
Here’s the hard truth: sooner or later all of our tomorrows will run out, so how we choose to spend today is significant. Each day that we postpone difficult tasks and succumb to the clutter that chokes creativity, discipline, and innovation results in a net deficit to the world, our organizations, and ourselves.
Die Empty is a tool for people who aren’t willing to put off their most important work for another day. Todd Henry explains the forces that keep us in stagnation, and introduces a process for instilling consistent practices into your life that will keep you on a true and steady course.
It’s not about slaving over a project or living on a whim–it’s about embracing the idea that time is finite and making the unique contribution to the world that only you can make. Henry shows how to cultivate the mindset and the methods you need to sustain your enthusiasm, push through mental barriers, and unleash your best work each day. His guiding principles and checkpoints include:
Define Your Battles: Counter aimlessness by defining your goals wisely and build your life around achieving them.
Be Fiercely Curious: Prevent boredom from dulling your senses by approaching your work with a curious mindset.
Step Out of Your Comfort Zone: Make a valuable contribution to the world by getting uncomfortable and embracing lifelong growth and skill development.
Sure to bring a newfound clarity and a sense of urgency to how you approach your work every day, Die Empty will help you reach for and achieve your goals.

Successful leaders of creative teams have mastered the difficult transition from doing the work to leading the work, and this book shows how. Todd Henry picks up where The Accidental Creative left off, and provides an indispensable handbook of on-the-ground, tactical advice for new managers of creatives. He draws from interviews with brilliant leaders and his experience consulting in creative organizations to share a wealth of practical advice, including:

– Why conflict can be a good thing, and how to manage it in a healthy way.
– How to build time and attention buffers to protect your team’s ability to do its best work.
– How to deal with the imbalance of power on your team, and manage inevitable struggles that arise.
– How to create “hunting trails” that will keep your team inspired and motivated to deliver brilliant work.
– Why you should still “get your hands dirty”, even as you strive to remove yourself from the work.
– Why you should fight to measure value, not time, when evaluating your team’s work.

It isn’t enough to just do your job anymore. In order to thrive in today’s marketplace, all of us, regardless of our role, have to be ready to generate brilliant ideas on demand.
Business creativity expert Todd Henry explains how to establish effective practices that unleash your creative potential. Born out of his consultancy and his popular podcast, Henry has created a practical method for discovering your personal creative rhythm. He focuses on five key elements:
* Focus: Begin with your end goal in mind.
* Relationships: Build stimulating relationships and ideas will follow.
* Energy: Manage it as your most valuable resource.
* Stimuli: Structure the right “inputs” to maximize creative output.
* Hours: Focus on effectiveness, not efficiency.
This is a guide for staying inspired and experiencing greater creative productivity than you ever imagined possible.