A post is a sprint. Keeping an active blog for years is a marathon.
A sales presentation is a sprint. Winning a sale and delivering the intended result is a marathon.
Infatuation is a sprint. A relationship is a marathon.
A sprint is a technique, part of a marathon.
There are many books about keeping the nose to the grindstone. A lot of rock’n’roll, too.
Jackson Browne’s The Pretender was always my favorite, until he did For A Dancer at Bill Graham’s memorial.
The problem is most of these commentaries tend to mushroom into a belief system, and then a behavior system, as adherents add paint jobs, and performance decals, and fuzzy dice to the frame.
Many of us have a fascination with the trappings of doing better work. Marc Andreessen called it “productivity prøn.” Finding a better way is worth celebrating.
Steven Pressfield wrote one of my favorite books this summer. The Profession is a very useful fiction. I decided to read his other books.
War of Art is not fiction. It is a stripped-down examination about the act of being productive.
It’s a three hour read that changed my understanding of what I do.
It has some amazing distinctions, like the difference between a fundamentalist and an artist, which have resorted a lot of what I believe.
A very useful book.
Blah, Blah Blog is this afternoon, so you’ve probably missed it. You can still take advantage of BlogLab, coming August 16. at the Web Managers Roundtable, We’ll be investigating how to develop a high impact repeatable blogging operation that makes a difference.
Posts
Dick:
ReplyDeleteGreat insight into the human condition - I once worked with a small businessman who had read a book which said that the long-term success rate of new small businesses jumped dramatically after being in business for 5 years. He was on a hard year four but waiting patiently for the coming success.
Starting a business is a sprint but many fail to realize this is merely admission to the marketplace - for a sustainable business, there must be energy and resources available to continue for the other 26 miles of the marathon.
Thanks too for sharing a thoughtful book to read - I have found that your picks have never been dull and have added to the tools we use to get better results. I've got it on the top of my stack.
Good Grief! The Internet answered! *grin*
ReplyDeleteThanks, Jack!