Mark Hodgkin 9/27/26 Mark Hodgkin 9/27/26

1,000 Straight Days of Painting

On this beautiful early autumn Sunday in the Blue Ridge Mountains, I took the easy walk downstairs, out through the courtyard, and into my semi-finished studio. I pulled up a photo on my phone that I'd taken last week, clipped it to a holder, and started mixing up some lights and darks on my palette.

I put some midtone touches on a small 5x7-inch canvas panel. Just a little study of a waterfall. Nothing particularly interesting or special about it. But this Sunday was the thousandth straight day I had put brush to canvas (or paper).

The streak started at the beginning of 2024, and I had no idea how long I'd go. My thinking was simple: I had started painting inconsistently during the 2020 pandemic. I'd gone in fits and starts but knew I had to log some serious time with a brush if I wanted to get anything out of this hobby — and I felt I owed it to myself to give it a try.

Here's where it intersected with a lot of thinking and learning I've done on habits, discipline, and learning.

There is a theory in the art world that every artist has at least a thousand ugly paintings in them. It's the artist's job to get through those paintings to some (hopefully) really good stuff.

The logic rests on three foundations, which I think apply to almost any pursuit:

1. A Quantifiable Learning Curve: Many are familiar with Malcolm Gladwell's "10,000 Hour" theory for achieving mastery, popularized in his 2008 bestseller Outliers. While the number of hours is oft-disputed, what's not in question is that being good at something takes time — lots of time — and deliberate practice. There are no shortcuts here. You have to do the work. Better to get that through your head now.

2. Liberation from Perfectionism: This is a big one with art. I've talked to so many people who've said some variation of the following: "I've tried it, but I wasn't very good!" After just doing it a few times? No kidding.

Despite how easy things may look in a YouTube video, I can assure you that it will be harder and take more missteps than you realize. Trying to get through "1,000 ugly paintings" essentially removes this mental hangup. The results are predetermined: it's not going to be a masterpiece. Realizing this is strangely freeing. Suddenly there's less pressure. Things that turn out well will feel great, but you won't beat yourself up about the stuff that is, to put it bluntly, bad. But that's the plan. Embrace it.

3. Muscle Memory: Just as a great golfer needs to make hundreds of thousands of swings to develop their best swing, you need time with a brush in your hand. You have to learn how it feels, how to make different brushstrokes, how to control the paint, and how to mix the colors you want to see. Again, there's no way around the reps here.

I also intentionally kept the commitment light. I didn't say I had to finish a piece every time I picked up the brush. Some days I would only have time to put a few strokes down. Some days I had to sneak a few in at a hotel while traveling. Other days I would finish several pieces in a longer studio session.

But just making the commitment to paint something every day is like the old gym advice to exercise for just five minutes (spoiler: you usually end up getting into a groove and going further). Sometimes it's just getting started that's hard.

As the streak grew — first hitting one year, then 500 days, then two years — there was a natural inclination to keep going. There is a habit-building method commonly attributed to Jerry Seinfeld: mark each successful day with a big X on a calendar, and before long you've created a chain you don't want to break.

But the truth is that it has not been that hard to keep it going. Certainly, there are days when it comes more smoothly, but I have been excited to get that work in each day. The feeling of creating, the feeling of getting better, and having tangible results from an effort you sink your heart and soul into is invigorating.

I'm not going to say I'm done with the ugly stage of my painting. I'm not selling my work, and I still don't share as much as I should. Some of what I create is frustratingly bad. But there are glimpses — there is more control, and I can feel the improvement.

I'm not sure how much longer I will insist on painting every day, but I don't expect to stop any time soon. That desire to "not break the chain" is strong, and we're almost to three full years.

I hope to keep writing more about the journey as well. I came to this pursuit later in life than many and am doing my best to catch up. If there is a similar thing you have been thinking of pursuing, please do it. It's not easy, but it is worth it.

Mark Hodgkin 4/18/26 Mark Hodgkin 4/18/26

Mark's 2025 Reads

Full list of the books I’m Reading in 2025

Below are the books I read in 2025. I have tried to divide them by how much I enjoyed them and how valuable I found them.

Highly Recommended:

Dying Every Day, James Romm

10x is Easier than 2x, Dan Sullivan

On the Shortness of Life, Seneca

The Gap and the Gain, Dan Sullivan

Bottom of the 33rd, Dan Barry

Black Snow, James Scott

Others:

Stolen Focus, Johann Hari

The Joy of Art, Carolyn Schlam

Phil, Alan Shipnuck

Israel, Noa Tishby

The Record Men, Rich Cohen

That Thin, Wild Mercury Sound, Daryl Sanders

The Grand Tour, Rich Kienzle

Tell to Win, Peter Guber

Previous Years’ Reads

For more, connect with me on GoodReads.

Mark Hodgkin 4/18/26 Mark Hodgkin 4/18/26

Mark's 2024 Reads

Running list of the books I’m Reading in 2023

Below are the books I read in 2024. I have tried to divide them by how much I enjoyed them and how valuable I found them.

Highly Recommended:

11.22.63, Stephen King

Composition of Outdoor Painting, Edgar Payne

Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr., Ron Chernow

Manhunt, James Swanson

The Last Picture Show, Larry McMurtry

Others:

A Necessary Act, Tony Wirt

Nixon Agonistes, Garry Wills

Hot Dog Money, Guy Lawson

American Moonshot, Douglas Brinkley

A Concise History of Florida, James Clark

How to Talk to Anyone and Everyone, Mindnatic

Master of Change, Brad Stullberg

The Big Roads, Earl Swift

The West, Geoffrey C. Ward

Previous Years’ Reads

For more, connect with me on GoodReads.

Mark Hodgkin 4/25/23 Mark Hodgkin 4/25/23

Mark's 2023 Reads

Running list of the books I’m Reading in 2023

Below are the books I read in 2023. I have tried to divide them by how much I enjoyed them and how valuable I found them.

Highly Recommended:

Smart Brevity, Jim Vandehei

A Man in Full, Tom Wolfe

Excellent Advice for Living, Kevin Kelly

Others:

The Lost Peace, Robert Dallek

One Man Against the World, Tim Weiner

Eisenhower Declassified, James Scheer

Curtis LeMay: Strategist and Tactician, Warren Kozak

Case Closed, Gerald Posner

The Last Policeman, Ben Winters

Hannibal, Patrick Hunt

Death of a Busybody, George Bellairs

Endless Energy, Peter Hollins

Previous Years’ Reads

For more, connect with me on GoodReads.

Mark Hodgkin 12/31/22 Mark Hodgkin 12/31/22

Mark's 2022 Reads

Running list of the books I read in 2022.

Below are the books I read in 2022. I have tried to divide them by how much I enjoyed them and how valuable I found them.

Also, I read or listened to many of these books on Scribd, which is a monthly service offering a huge variety of digital books, audio books, and documents. It’s like Netflix for book lovers!
Use this link for a free sixty days of the service - it’s a great service.

Highly Recommended:

Competing Against Luck, Clayton M. Chritensen

The Big East, Dana O’Neil

No Country for Old Men, Cormac McCarthy

Four Thousand Weeks, Oliver Burkeman

Others:

The Best American Short Stories 2017, Meg Wolitzer (Editor)

Do Hard Things, Steve Magness

Boys Will Be Boys, Jeff Pearlman

Six Days of the Condor, James Grady

The Man Who Lived by Night, David Handler

The Man Who Would Be F. Scott Fitzgerald, David Handler

Take Your Eye off the Puck, Greg Wyshynski

Instant, Christopher Bonanos

False Start, Terry Pluto

The Postman Always Rings Twice, James M. Cain

Buried, Jeffery Dever

Overtime, John U. Bacon

The Last Temptation of Christ, Nikos Kazantzakis

The New Rules of Cheese, Anne Saxelby

Pontius Pilate, Ann Wroe

Playmakers, Mike Florio

The Invisible Bridge, Rick Perlstein

In The Garden of Beasts, Erik Larson

Previous Years’ Reads

For more, connect with me on GoodReads.

Mark Hodgkin 12/31/21 Mark Hodgkin 12/31/21

Mark's 2021 Reads

Running list of the books I read in 2021.

Below are the books I read in 2021. I have tried to divide them by how much I enjoyed them and how valuable I found them.

Highly Recommended:

The Bully Pulpit, Doris Kearns Goodwin

Steve Jobs, Walter Isaacson

The Win Without Pitching Manifesto, Blair Enns (*Read Twice)

Prisoners of Geography, Tim Marshall

The Spy Masters, Chris Whipple

Parkland, Vincent Bugliosi

The Devil in the Grove, Gilbert King

Parting the Waters, Taylor Branch

Others:

Tanking to the Top, Yaron Weitzman

Legendary Self-Discipline, Peter Hollins

Life of a Klansman, Edward Ball

The Catalyst, Jonah Berger

Ten Innings at Wrigley, Kevin Cook

Digital Gold, Nathaniel Popper

Queen of Scots, John Guy

Smart Baseball, Keith Law

How to Build a Car, Adrian Newey

Murdered Midas, Charlotte Gray

Blockchain, Harvard Business Review

Making Time, Bob Clagett

The Last of the President’s Men, Bob Woodward

The Happiness Advantage, Shawn Achor

They Thought They Were Free, Milton Sanford Mayer

Previous Years’ Reads

For more, connect with me on GoodReads.

Mark Hodgkin 1/1/21 Mark Hodgkin 1/1/21

Mark's 2020 Reads

Below are the books I read in 2020. I have tried to divide them by how much I enjoyed them and how valuable I found them. Click to buy on Amazon via my referral link (price stays same for you but helps support the SportsBiz Book Exchange).

Highly Recommended:

Changing the Game, Jim Host

Lone Star, T.R. Fehrenbach

Truman, David McCullough

Them: Why We Hate Each Other - And How to Heal, Ben Sasse

High Output Management, Andrew Grove

Richard Nixon: The Life, John Farrell

The Coddling of the American Mind, Greg Lukianoff & Jonathan Haidt

Principles: Life and Work, Ray Dalio

The Science of Self Learning, Peter Hollins

Leonardo da Vinci, Walter Isaacson

Others:

Why We Make Things and Why It Matters, Peter Korn

Hollywood’s Eve, Lili Anolik

Grace will Lead Us Home, Jennifer Berry Hawes

The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, Tom Wolfe

How Smart Machines Think, Sean Gerrish

When Things Fall Apart, Pema Chodron

The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho

Everybody Lies, Seth Stephens-Davidowitz

A Life Well Played, Arnold Palmer

Finite and Infinite Games, James Carse

Everybody Lies, Seth Stephens-Davidowitz

Data Mining, Herbert Jones

You Are Not A Rock, Mark Freeman

Gratitude, Oliver Sacks

Previous Years’ Reads

2019

2018

2017

For more, connect with me on GoodReads.

Mark Hodgkin 7/29/20 Mark Hodgkin 7/29/20

Sue Thaden (From Now On) Joins The Sports Leadership Podcast for Episode 43

Sue Thaden, who I have had the pleasure of knowing for several years, has done amazing work with her two companies - CRi, an IT staffing firm and From Now On, who builds mobile apps in the sports market. Sue joined us on Episode 43 to discuss her background as an entrepreneur and company founder for two successful companies.

She shares some great tips on hiring, developing your people, and keeping them engaged. Kevin and I really enjoyed this conversation and I’m sure you will too!

Sports Leadership Podcast · Episode 43 (From Now On Co-Founder & CEO Sue Thaden)

If you have not yet, please subscribe to the Sports Leadership Podcast on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, SoundCloud or Google Play.