Christian Estrup

Imagine your future success and make up a narrative that is so powerful and appealing that you inevitably end up tweaking your habits and your choices accordingly. In my eyes this is how to best create the change you want to see; in your own life as well as in the world....

What happens if you don't dare to start making your art until the sun, moon and stars are perfectly aligned? What happens if you never come to terms with the fact that your shit will never be perfect? Honestly? Nothing. Nothing ever happens and then suddenly one day it'll be too late....

Many will probably think that being a successful creative is something that depends on an end product and the response of the outside world. However, I will claim that being a successful creative has everything to do with the process and less with the outcome....

Everything comes with a price tag. We often end up chasing financial succes, imagining that it will eventually make us able to buy more freedom. But maybe real freedom is not freedom through money, but rather freedom from money?...

In an interview for this year's White Sands magazine, I was asked the other day if I had a mission. My immediate answer was a reserved ". . . no, not really."...

Practice makes—as the saying goes—perfect, and it goes without saying that the things we prioritize on a daily basis also happen to be the things we end up mastering the most. The things that define us....

We all know it way too well: We really ought to disconnect ourselves and our devices and practice what we preach: sit down with a notebook or a Spacepen, or go to the studio and go all in....

Life is so short, and still there is so much we want to do and so much we want to achieve. For inspiration, a set of guidelines I use every day myself as tools to maintain direction and focus....

Don't buy, and don't buy into everything: the stories you tell yourself create your reality and expand (or narrows) your world. Do...

A recommendation that we all stand up against the culture of perfection, and instead of only posting the beautiful, staged pictures, also dare to stand by our ugly moments, the errors and mistakes, and show our reality without a filter....

Many may fear the future because no one knows what it will bring, and can only guess what tomorrow will look like concretely. Instead of seeing the impending green transition as a likely loss of prosperity and freedom, however, we should see it as the opposite: A development that sets us free....

It is difficult to find an analyst who does not recognize the investment potential of the green transition. At least in the long run. The question is not whether you should invest, but rather which stocks to buy and when?...

Just as it is far from unimportant what you put in the shopping basket, and you with your choices on a daily basis help to either maintain or change our society, your investments are an obvious opportunity to shape the world of tomorrow....

Is there anything cooler than seeing someone insist on their own biased approach, and dare to walk the plank? Here's my own take on an artist statement, which shows how you can choose to reprioritize your efforts and your goals in your mid/late forties....

—is not, and yet is often the same as appreciating one's work. Setting an amount is a difficult discipline, not least for us artists who prefer to talk about moods, materials and flow rather than money....

As a freelancer, you sell your own working time. Many will therefore probably think that the wisest thing is to pay as many invoiced hours as possible, and get as much money as possible in the coffers. Personally, though, I have chosen a slightly different strategy....

There is no reason to be ashamed of one's mistakes, which are actually valuable learning. Last week's preparation of my keynote on sustainability, innovation and entrepreneurship gave me the opportunity to summarize parts of my own history that others can hopefully learn from....

Ever considered what things would look like if labor hours were essentially free, and materials—raw materials and resources in the broadest sense—in return cost a fortune? Doesn't that really sound like the recipe for a better and more sustainable future?...

After countless poor excuses, I have now finally said goodbye to my self-proclaimed, imagined amateur status. In short, I have become wiser, and have chosen to commit myself to living, acting and creating as a professional....

People can get rich from the most unbelievable things. But what we as a society should reward is not always what draws the winning ticket in our modern, thoroughly financialized money economy. Perhaps one explanation is the separation of money and value creation?...

Groping blindly may sound helpless, but is not necessarily the stupidest approach if the long-term ambition is to create something groundbreakingly different and new....

It is not every day that it is easy to keep faith in what you create; paint, write, whatever, has any value. But damn it. Even though it's hard, never let self-doubt get the better of you and undermine the project....

Love the old-fashioned, leather-bound notebooks, and the impossible mess I get scrawled down and tucked out of the way in them. The world becomes more manageable in a tech-friendly notes app. But writing by hand just adds something different, more, and more alive to the writing process....

In the book The death of the artist, William Deresiewicz describes an economy where we have all become content creators, and fight for each other's attention on Google's and Facebook's premises; an economy where it is harder than ever for the creative artists to find a foothold, financially....

It can be difficult to settle on the right shelf, and certainly not all of us have an easy time finding, or even defining, our dream job. But so what? What to do when the dear boxes just don't fit at all?...

If we choose to see the corona crisis as a necessary wakeup call, what kind of message is the planet sending us? And perhaps just as interesting: How can we humans best listen and learn?...

In short, the one book I would have benefited from reading when I was 18 years old and walking around thinking that talent is everything and that daily repetition and continuous training is only relevant to those who don't have it....