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Thin rewards vs. thick rewards
When you cave in to your impulses—to check social media, to engage an overwhelming emotion, to eat delicious food of little nutritional value, to not speak up, to people please, to follow a default path, etc.—you will feel good in the moment. Unfortunately, the feeling usually disappears very quickly. These are thin rewards, and you…
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The brand signature litmus test
One way to tell you’ve got a signature: when your style reminds other people of your work in their day to day lives, like Accidental Wes Anderson, or Accidental Bronson. (Parodying is also a good sign, like Fake Steve Jobs or Big Ghost.)
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A 20 year detour
When Ke Huy Quan was 12 years old, he made his film debut starring in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Millions of viewers would know his character, Short Round. Yet as he got older and decided he wanted to act for a living, he saw fewer opportunities to act. He couldn’t see a…
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Practicing vs. pushing
Practice is about getting better, and pushing is about exerting greater force. While sometimes people may want you to push yourself to practice harder—and while yes, sometimes, the need is there!—many times the two aren’t necessarily connected together. Pushing too hard, or too often, can actually ruin a practice, because it creates too much pressure…
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Find spaces to talk about your ideas
Promoting your work actually makes an impact. Anne Trubek notes, after publishing 90 books, “I can trace a pretty, if not completely, clear line between an author’s marketing prowess and effort and sales.” There are a lot of people who would probably want to learn more—as soon as they are aware of it and can…
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Notes on promotion, at the book fair
Printed Matter’s New York Art Book Fair is made up of 36,000 square feet of books and the people who print and publish them. If you like books, or art, it’s a great place to be. Events are great temporary spaces and occasions to bring a group of people together (known in marketing as activation).…
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What can you point to?
In Studs Terkel’s Working, a steel mill worker named Mike Lefevre says, “Picasso can point to a painting. What can I point to? A writer can point to a book. Everybody should have something to point to.” Sometimes, the work isn’t as concrete as a building. If your contribution was suggesting a change in direction…
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You can’t summarize the most important parts of a book
If you want a book to change you, you’ll need to do it the long, hard, stupid way. The saying goes you need to pay twice for a book; once when you purchase it, another when you read it the first time. In the case of a particular book (e.g., 50 Cent’s Hustle Harder, Hustle…
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Stopping
Yesterday, I wrote a response to the question, “How do you do it all?” and this is one of Seth Godin’s techniques that I am still learning: he stops. Even when there’s every reason not to stop. A couple of years ago, Seth Godin stopped working on his podcast, Akimbo. He says, “I stopped not…
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Doing it all
A new friend recently asked, “You’ve written a book, you write a blog every day, you work at Figma. How do you do it all?” I remember that I have also asked questions like this. Here’s my method: Priority: I try to maintain a clear sense of what is most important that day, and overall.…