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Who benefits from low agency beliefs and behaviors?
Legacy intermediaries (e.g., middlemen such as traditional publishers, record labels, agents, etc.) are incentivized to make you think that you need them. This belief gives their businesses the best chance of continued survival and better advantages. The key is: whether you actually need them or not is entirely another matter; they only need you to…
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To promote your work on social media, ask friends to like or share, and send them a calendar invite
Because there’s so much noise on the internet, it takes an extremely loud one to stand out. In marketing, there’s a heuristic known as effective frequency, also less formally as the Rule of 7; in order for a person to commit to trying your product, they need to hear it at least 7 times. Given…
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Jamming on a WIP
For whatever reason, while I’ve known the power of collaboration in my head, my heart generally inclined itself to stay hush on my works in progress (WIP). Some reasons: I don’t mind telling friends or people, I just also don’t want to tell everyone; there’s the paper suggesting that publicly announcing your goals could make…
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Creative Doing, now available on Kindle
In the past couple of years, I’ve done most of my reading on an ebook reader (an Amazon Kindle). I love paper books, and I’d sworn by them through most of my 20s; then I moved across the world and couldn’t bring them with me. I’m slowly donating them to the library. As you can…
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Google and the Dip
Seth Godin describes The Dip as, “The long slog between starting and mastery.” Two excerpts from Seth Godin’s The Dip stood out to me: “The brave thing to do is to tough it out and end up on the other side—getting all the benefits that come from scarcity. The mature thing is not even to…
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Contentions: Same campaign, fresh hook
While many marketers, journalists, and writers gather up their year-end round ups and campaigns—each largely only differing in the assortment of inventory—a decade ago, the Bloomberg Businessweek team found a moment of truth within the structure: the jealousy list. It describes the premise as, “All the stories we wish we wrote this year.” It’s a…
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Publish everything, promote selectively
I’d previously corresponded with a prominent author who had dabbled with writing every day. They concluded that the practice wasn’t for them—they weren’t capable of developing a good new idea every day, which would reach hundreds of thousands of readers. This stood out in contrast to my recommended approach, which is to make a lot…
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Beginner’s luck
From Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist: “It’s called the principle of favorability. When you play cards the first time, you are almost sure to win. Beginner’s luck…. Because there is a force that wants you to realize your Personal Legend; it whets your appetite with a taste of success.” Then, much later: “It seemed as if…
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It wouldn’t be the same without you
The title was inspired by some words I saw on the pavement near the Flatiron building a few weeks ago. I didn’t write down who wrote it, though it clearly made an impact. My life—and I’m guessing dozens, if not hundreds or even thousands, of others—wouldn’t be the same without them. Some quotes that have…
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Aiming high vs. aiming low
There’s a saying attributed to Norman Vincent Peale, “Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.” The idea is, by aiming high, even if you fall short of your expectations, you will land further than if you’d had no expectations at all. While this could make for a good goal…