Coming off an intense Q1, I reflected on knocking out my big accomplishment: writing a damn book and self-publishing it on Amazon. The book launched in the #1 spot in New Releases in small business on the Amazon spots where it stayed for a week!
So that was on my mind for my reading and writing this quarter.
Read: The Originals
I read this book soon after publishing my own. I chose it because it seemed like the more professional, mainstream, “official” version of my own book. I’d never read Adam Grant before but this title was getting a lot of airtime on podcasts and on Twitter. I bought it and dove in.
As expected, this was the perfect book selection. Several of the themes in The Parallel Entrepreneur were confirmed by Grant.
Take this one, for example:
Entrepreneurs who kept their day jobs had 33 percent lower odds of failure than those who quit.
Adam Grant, Originals
This point is reinforced throughout The Parallel Entrepreneur. Side projects are real assets, not distractions. And looking the other direction, your day job is also an asset to your side business. You’re able to be more creative and take more risks on a longer time horizon when you have a regular paycheck.
I also really liked this point, which influences me to this day, and is the reason I continue to write and want to begin work on another book.
Simonton finds that on average, creative geniuses weren’t qualitatively better in their fields than their peers. They simply produced a greater volume of work, which gave them more variation and a higher chance of originality.
Adam Grant, Originals
It’s not just quality, it’s quantity. It takes a lot of iterations to have a truly original, “genius” contribution to society. So let’s get to the writing.
Write: I wrote about writing
In this short essay, I wrote about my book-writing process. I took a really relaxing 3-day, 2-night writing retreat in Sonoma and knocked out about half of my book. I prepared for this trip with a thorough outline, an open calendar, and a lot of motivation. I’d never done something like this before and I was committed.
Here’s me crossing the 30,000-word mark that I was shooting for. That’s a last-call Old Fashioned in my hand. It was about 11pm on my last night of the retreat. I started with 13,000 words in the document.
Play: Mayonaise
This was always my favorite song on the Siamese Dream album. I listened to that album backwards and forwards in high school. I loved the sorrow, angst, and power of the Smashing Pumpkins. Such a great band, and the combination of Billy Corgan’s rhythm guitar riffs and Iha’s melodic leads is grunge rock perfection.
Mayonaise has it all and for the first time in twenty years (why did it take me this long??) I learned the rocking power chords, and that lovely arpeggiating intro and solo. This song is one of my all-time favorites in any genre.