A Special Arrogance for Writers

Thinking your fan base is “everyone” is the wrong kind of arrogance.

Knowing that some people won’t get you, but that your fans will be even more delighted to be insiders because of it . . . I guess that’s not arrogance, is it?

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Dreams Are Not Enough

Seth writes about Harper Lee’s double miracle at The Domino Project. You should read it. I’ll wait.

# # #

I hope you read it or what I write here will make less sense.

Dreaming is wonderful. It’s vital to an artist. No dreams, no art.

Dreaming is not a business plan.

(more…)

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Success and Failure: 2 Ways of Doing Each

This was originally a post on my Business Heretics website.

There are two ways to succeed:

1. things turn out the way we expected; or,
2. they don’t, and we learn something from it

There are two ways to fail:

1. we don’t learn the lesson from Success #2 above; or
2. we quit before we have a chance to fail and achieve Success #2 above

Continuing the Theme of Two, here are two ways for Fail #1:

1. we can’t find the lesson to be learned; we looked, honest, and we can’t find it; or
2. we think Success #2 is actually failure, so we don’t even look for the lesson

If you’re doing it right, here’s how your business will look, from most frequent to least frequent:

1. Success #2: it didn’t turn out, but we learned a lesson
2. Success #1: it worked!
3. Fail #1a: the lesson is impossible to discern

You’ll note that Fail #1b and Fail #2 aren’t even on the list. Eliminate Fail #2 by quitting after you’ve learned the lesson to be learned.

Eliminate Fail #1b by changing your perception of how the universe functions and realising that life is something you create, not something that happens to you.

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