Nobody likes a perfectionist, but nobody hates a masterpiece. I don’t want to sanitize my work to perfection because the kind of writing that is excreted by committees blows chunks. I’ve almost completed my book, and it’s been in an improving state of almost completion for weeks, even though it’s consuming 3-4 hours of my time each day. And it’s 3-4 joyful hours. I think I’m a week or so from releasing it, and I wanted it out there and in the world’s hands before christmas, hence the santa hat.

But, really, the content was drafted. I don’t have the capacity to write production quality content in real time. I was taking on big damn topics: Drama, procrastination. There’s a chapter called f—k your parents. Those things weren’t going to work if they were hamfisted or shrill attempts. The writing itself had to be more solid than anything I’ve ever written, and it’s certainly a project that is about as hard as anything I’ve done.

Realize, I’ve read about 500 books in the business/self help/personal development genre in my lifetime. Everything from the excellent “7 Habits” to the mediocre “Cheese” to some trite & dangerous crap du jour like the Secret.

Right now, I’m not unhappy with the writing. That’s not to say I’m done with it. I’ve gone through it 5-6 times, and it’s shaping up to look really friggin’ cool. The last week has been uplifting–the feedback from my throng has been good, and now I look for more negative feedback to make sure it’s sharp as hell before I release it. I should be doing work on the Blog I’ve made, but that’ll come, and I intend to continue to improve this throughout its lifetime. There’s also so much more to write, there were 24 chapters called:

F—k yourself:
f–k clutter
f–k perfection
f–k whining
f–k obesity (free sample)
f–k procrastination
f–k indecision
f–k drama
f–k slacking

F—k Your tribe:

f–k your team
f–k your guru
f–k your job
f–k your stroller
f–k baby boomers
f–k The Jonses
f–k lawyers
f–k meetings

F—k your programming:

f–k self righteousness
f–k manners
f–k fear
f–k egotism
f–k entitlment
f–k compromise
f–k materialism
f–k your parents

The interior design I absolutely love, and the collaboration has been an utter blast. The marketing is going to be fun, too, an ‘anti’ self help book. We’re going through it over and over again to make sure it makes sense, it’s solidly constructed. It’s more work than you think, but the work will pay off, provided that the entire consumerist economy isn’t a worse problem than I had thought.

This will probably be the last PDF I do. While doing a PDF gives you good control and SOME interactivity, the real promise of ebooks is what they do that’s not book. In other words, Brian Clark was again, right. And I’ve ignored his advice because of Zen To Done’s inspiration. That was a PDF that felt like the best of both worlds, so I gave ‘er a whirl.

Anyway, this beast has consumed me for a while. I look forward to getting it done and off of my chest. I’ll probably have some version of this for sale next Monday, but it’s unlikely to be the ‘final’ version.

Also: more stuff on freelancing is coming. For those of you that requested the book download–I’m sorry I got ahead of myself. I was excited about Keith’s cool Aweber plugin for WordPress, and wanted to put it to use. (That’s another project that’s almost done. If you want an aweber box that’s 100% customizable, and 100% compatible with every WP theme, let me know, Keith and I’ve got something cool for you).

See you tomorrow.  Back to th e mill.

http://www.jonathanfields.com/blog/steal-this-idea-im-begging-you/

Regarding ideas, he writes:

If it’s that good, people will try to knock it off the moment you gain any level of traction, notoriety or both. Maybe sooner. In fact, if they don’t, it just may speak to the fact that what you’ve got is either not nearly as cool as you think it is or you’re not able to communicate it’s coolness…

I know that people will steal ideas.  I steal ideas.   I work with great people at places like Lenderama and BHB and those folks throw off great ideas all the time.  For free.  For real, and they keep on doing it, all the time.  One of my synapses will fire a half formed idea, and then Tood or Greg or Pat will throw off some nugget that I didn’t know before.  And I’ll be enriched with thoughts and thought, and I’ll be able to do my job more effectively.  These ideas are given away for free.  All the time.

And they are precious.  Look–if we apply the lessons that are here already for the taking, we’re going to get so far ahead of the curve, so enriched, so smart, that we’ll never finish.   The value of Twitter is mostly that we see other brains having firing synapes together.  Ideas are everwhere, and they’re precious.  An idea to use a spammy plugin like FeedWordPress to create a non spammy blog network came out of a conversation.  Anyone can use it.  There you go.  It just requires putting it into use.

And there’s the rub, isn’t it?  We all know essentially, in broad strokes, what to do to to make life happen.  We know that we need to pick up the phone and call people, we know we need to connect, think, help, add value.   And yet, we find ourselves not executing because the next big idea is right around the corner.   Well, the next big thing…is simply executing what we do well already.  It’s taking the bull by the horns and getting things DONE and not started.  Execution is more profitable than shere creativity.

There is nothing staggeringly new about what’s happening now.  The best of what we do is about elegance, not novelty.  Facebook could have been twitter, could have kept twitter from happening.  They didn’t go that route.  Twitter could have been blogging.  Livejournal could have been WordPress.  Etc.  Etc.   All of those ideas were half thefts, and just SCAMPER type solutions.    What was different is execution.  There isn’t really an ‘information advantage’ out there right now that has a lot of meaning, except in the realm of execution, finishing projects, getitng things all the way done.

Even though they are abundant–ideas are precious.  Having what it takes to finish, to do, to be, to have whatever we seek…starts with being created in the mind.   Instead of fighting over who owns the knife, we should help one another grow a bigger pie.  Or mix a better metaphor.   All it takes is a realization that scarcity and value are different things.  In an abundant world, we can continue to freely throw off knowledge.  Hoarding knowledge is going to become a thing of the past.

How can we encourage others to think?

How can we encourage ourselves to think?

How can we continue to make sure ideas grow?

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