Soul Shelter

Hiroshi Tasaka is talking so fast it makes my head whirl. Can even Japanese listeners follow him? I wonder.

Tasaka, a Tokyo-based Tama University professor, writer, and investor with a Ph.D. in nuclear engineering, just served on a panel of judges critiquing a series of presentations by aspiring social entrepreneurs. Now he’s sharing his thoughts with a rapt audience.

“I always thought that strategy was essential to the success of a new business,” Tasaka remarks, “but after watching these presentations, it struck me that the personality and character of the founder of the business is in fact more important than the strategy itself.”

My takeaway? Personality is the ultimate strategy.

This insight can help new entrepreneurs in two crucial ways.

First, as discussed in our primer, scarcity defines entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship is all about making things happen with limited resources.

So when an entrepreneur lacks money, staff, and other assets, what’s left to attract partners, investors, and customers?

Personality.

The founder’s personality is what garners support, attracts coworkers, and creates the atmosphere of the organization, says Tasaka. Ultimately, what besides personality can be the foundation for management? For the company itself?

But there’s a second reason why personality is the ultimate strategy for entrepreneurs, whether they have money or not.

Ventures often fail because they are incompatible with the founder’s personality.

In other words, personality as strategy means not changing yourself, but rather focusing on endeavors that jibe with who you are.

Referring to late 1990s and early 2000 Internet ventures, Tasaka said:

They started with market analyses such as those that might be prepared by a consultant, then built ‘business plans’ around a competitive analysis. Typically the conclusion was something like ‘no one is in this space now, so if we get in immediately, we won’t have any competition. We can expect annual growth of 65%, a market size of $800 million three years from now, and revenues and earnings of $400 million and $80 million, respectively’.

This kind of planning and forecasting cannot, in and of itself, lead a venture to success, Tasaka emphasized. People, not plans, drive a business forward. It’s impossible to create a successful venture without a founder who inspires those around her to think, ‘this is someone I can get behind.’ A personality compatible with the paper business plan creates the most powerful combination. But if the founder’s character is incompatible with the plan, and she tries to force the execution of a logical plan on a ‘stand-alone’ basis, the inconsistencies are bound to turn up—as failure—sooner or later.

As investors around the world have put it, “I invest in people, not in companies or ideas.”

So for entrepreneurs who have nothing—and for those who have everything—here’s some food for thought:

Personality is the ultimate strategy.

(I attended Professor Tasaka’s lecture in 2002 and offered these thoughts in a different form that year in Japan Entrepreneur Report.)

You may also enjoy:

“The Soul of an Entrepreneur, the DNA of a Business”

“Three Things I Wish I’d Known Before Starting My Own Business”

“Entrepreneurship: A Primer“

A slim sourcebook for writers, The Elements of Style by William Strunk and E.B. White is a veritable classic, thoroughly instructive and reliable for any writer young or old, novice or professional.

During one of my periodic perusals of the book recently, it struck me how much of Strunk and White’s writing advice can be viewed as advice about life and career. So, herewith, four nuggets from The Elements of (Life)Style.

(Note: Insertions of red text represent my adaptations of Strunk & White.)

1. “Put statements in positive form.”

“Make definite assertions,” counsel Strunk & White. “Avoid tame, colorless, hesitating, noncommittal language.” Avoid using the word “not” as “a means of evasion.” This helps one see clearly and define one’s goals.

Thus: I do not very often work all that hard

becomes: I lack discipline.

And: I do not have a clear sense of how to reach my objective

becomes: I need clear intermediate goals.

2. “Use the active voice.”

Strunk & White assert: “The active voice is usually more direct and vigorous than the passive.” In undertaking challenges in life, too, the active voice helps harness one’s passion and belief.

I will pursue my destiny and embrace my happiness.

This is much better than

My destiny and happiness are there for my pursuing.

3. “Use definite, specific, concrete language.”

Strunk & White advise us to “Prefer the specific to the general, the definite to the vague, the concrete to the abstract.”

“If those who have studied the art of writing life are in accord on any one point, it is on this: the surest way to hold the attention of the reader get inspired and remain perseverant is by being specific, definite, and concrete” in one’s vision.

Thus:

I will work very hard to write well and try to get published

becomes:

I will write for two hours every day until I’ve produced a complete short story. Referring to The Elements of Style, I will revise the story. I will show the story to trusted readers, weigh their comments about it, and make appropriate changes and improvements. Finally, once the story is as perfect as I believe I can make it, I will send a copy of it to one magazine per week until it is accepted for publication.

4. “Choose a suitable design and hold to it.”

Strunk & White point out that every form of writing happy, healthy lifestyle and every fulfilling career is rooted in a structure or plan — though they acknowledge that “In some cases, the best design is no design.”

More often, however, planning precedes writing success. A primary rule of composition success “is to foresee or determine the shape of what is to come and pursue that shape.”

A sonnet is built on a fourteen-line frame, of five-foot lines. Hence, the sonneteer knows exactly where he is headed. …

The more clearly one perceives the shape a design for one’s desires, the better one’s chances of success. …”

What do you know, maybe writing well and living well aren’t all that different.

You may also enjoy:

-Tim’s Entrepreneurship Series-

“Eight Difficult, Outdated Ways to Excel”

“Secrets of Creative Longevity“

A friend recently transitioned from his safe but standing-still job into a promising but “risky” career as a creative professional. So I thought I’d offer some thoughts on how he and readers like him can best ensure that they create and keep wealth.

Many of us aspire to act on our dreams as my friend is doing. And like him, many face the prospect with a mix of hope and excited apprehension. It’s no easy matter to abandon a steady job in favor of an uncertain income.

I once came to this juncture in my own life. What I learned was, there’s no better time to put all your eggs in one basket. Or, in financial advisorspeak, “Wealth is made in concentration.”

My friend mentioned the possibility of supplementing his new career earnings with computer consulting and other work. As one who’s been down that path before, I offered one word of advice.

Don’t.

Focusing time, energy, and capital single-mindedly on your core competency is what builds wealth. Remember The Millionaire Next Door? Most of the people featured in that book became millionaires by devoting themselves wholeheartedly to small businesses. Whether they ran car repair shops, operated restaurants, or flipped rebuilt houses, they poured their time, talent, and cash into one thing. They didn’t hedge their bets by trying to supplement their incomes with peripheral projects. They concentrated with laser intensity on what they did best, and stuck with it over time. We should all do the same. Wealth is made in concentration.

My friend is a talented professional with a deservedly large and growing following. He’s on his way to wealth. So here’s the second of two crucial secrets: “Wealth is made in concentration—and maintained in diversification.” In other words, once you’ve accumulated some wealth, start diversifying away from your concentration.

For example, you’d be wise to invest in at least two uncorrelated asset classes, such as U.S. real estate and overseas stocks. Keep some cash in higher-yield money market funds. Pay off your mortgage (after selling my first company, I paid off three, each on different properties, then kept a vow to buy everything with cash going forward, including real estate).

In recent years, people who became rich on paper by accumulating employer stock in their pension plans learned the hard way that wealth is, indeed, made in concentration—in their cases, in the form of employer stock. But when share prices crashed, those who failed to diversify away from excessive concentration in their own company’s equity paid a dear price.

So, if, like my friend, you keep on concentrating, before long you’ll face a pleasant new challenge: diversifying.

Remember: Wealth is made in concentration—and maintained in diversification.

You may also enjoy:

“Billionaire Lessons in Prosperity-Building”

“How Much is Enough?”

“The Barn of Fortune? (Thoughts on Happiness and Financial Freedom)“

Recently a famous, award-winning author invited some literary cronies and I to visit him at his rural getaway. “C’mon over,” he said. “There’ll be lots of people, good food, and conversation.”

The invitation seemed providential. My four fellow scribblers and I had housed ourselves in the remote Northwest for a three-day writers’ group, and this famous author’s summer digs happened to lie twenty-odd miles from our spot. Normally a bit reclusive, the author (call him Churchill) opens his thirty-acre home for one weekend a year. It so happened that we’d come to his neck of the woods on that very weekend. Providence indeed.

Churchill is a sort of living legend (when I say award-winning I mean major awards). We’d be crazy to miss out on hanging with such an eminent elder.

Here is where this becomes a cautionary tale about opportunity, and what to do (or not to do) when it arrives. The invitation was for Sunday evening. We spent Friday and Saturday anxiously awaiting it. Then Sunday came and I realized, with a gulp, that I didn’t want to go. It had suddenly occurred to me that the whole scenario was a bit weird. I mean, there were five of us, but only one of us, Bob, had actually met Churchill (Bob had secured the invitation). What business, really, did the rest of us — a vanload of literary anchovy — have diving into this Great White’s waters?

I’m not one for what they call “schmoozing.” And I get anxious around famous authors because I always fear my motives are in question. I don’t want a writer I especially admire — or anybody else — to think I’m angling for a connection, favor, or whatever.

So I’d asked myself, Why do I want to go to Churchill’s? To gawk at fame? to worship at a shrine? to sniff around for “connections”? None of those, truly. More, I just hoped to glean a little inspiration from the presence of an inspired and accomplished writer.

But imagining the evening, I just got embarrassed. As a self-respecting author, I didn’t want to give off the slightest glister of an inspiration leech. At best, I realized, I would feel like a paparazzo.

“I’m not going,” I told the group.

They looked at me like I’d put my pants on backwards. “What!?”

“It makes me feel slimy,” I said. “Like he’ll know I’m there just because he’s famous. And worse, I’ll know that he knows that I know he knows.”

They asked me if I wanted them to check my head. But then a silence descended and everybody started to brood. I’d made a point, and it had given them all reservations. That was Sunday morning and, long story short, by Sunday afternoon all of us but Bob had cold feet.

“It won’t be weird,” Bob reassured. “It’s loose. Churchill expects strangers to be there.”

But we’d talked ourselves out of the expedition already. Nah, we’d feel better not going, we said.

Still, we kept brooding about it. Writers excel at over-thinking.

Long story short again, by 5:30 that evening we were all packed in the van and on our way to Churchill’s. “We’re not slimy,” we were telling ourselves. “He invited us. It would be rude not to show.”

And we really weren’t slimy, just writers eager to shake a master’s hand. But secretly I already felt, and knew I would feel all evening, like a star-worshiping dufus — and what a demeaning feeling. Where had the self-respecting author in me gone?

We arrived at Churchill’s bearing dessert. See, we’re here as guests, not gawkers. We’ve brought pie as proof.

Churchill’s wife, a true sweetheart, welcomed us one by one, and moments later we were shaking Churchill’s God-graced hand, introducing ourselves.

It was a little weird. Hi, I’m Nobody. Thanks for inviting me from my Nowhere to your Genius-gilded, Prize-heaped Somewhere. But before we knew it we were filing through the potluck line amidst thirty or forty other guests.

We found a table and sat to eat, chatting with Mrs. Churchill when she joined us. Her kindness made abundantly clear that she didn’t think our presence strange at all. Churchill ate at a separate table with five or six of the other guests. Some of those people must have been famous too, we thought.

When we’d finished eating we didn’t know what to do. For some reason, we got up en masse and loitered near the edge of the author’s table. It seemed to have an impenetrable fame-bubble around it. I felt every bit the dufus.

We retreated to the potluck table and stood around. Then Bob saved us by proposing that we all take a walk up the wooded hill behind the house. He’d heard Churchill was building a writing shack in the cedars up there. Like a flock we wheeled in that direction.

We murmured amongst ourselves as we went. “Yeah, it’s a little weird after all. Not as weird as we thought, but weird. Let’s stay an hour or so, then say thanks and split.”

Before we reached the writing shack we heard something rumbling behind us.

“It’s Churchill,” one of us said.

The author overtook us in a brown pickup. “Hop in,” he said. Apparently, he’d left his dinner group down at the house so he could show us around personally.

For the next half-hour he carted the five of us here and there about the property, pointing out things and telling us stories. He showed us the writing shack, the creek, an old totem pole. He was a really nice guy.

I realized, ashamed, that in all my worrying and speculating about this evening, I’d completely failed to allow for the possibility of Churchill’s goodwill. But here he was, giving five young writers his special welcome, no questions asked — and no suspicions about why we’d accepted his invitation. He’d invited us, it was that simple.

In that half-hour I learned what Tim, in his book The Swordless Samurai, articulates with the elegant phrase:

To gain trust, give it.

This lesson alone would have made the evening valuable. Because I’d failed to have faith in others’ goodwill, I’d nearly talked myself out of accepting Churchill’s invitation. And if I hadn’t met Churchill I would have missed what happened next — the night’s second most valuable moment. (And here is where this becomes a story about inspiration and its unexpected forms).

Churchill had brought us down to a pond at the bottom of his property. He gestured to a boathouse at its edge. “That’s my writing office. Here, I’ll show you.”

We followed him into a dim, disorderly, book-cluttered room. His desk, small and shabby, stood beneath a window. This lauded author works in that lonely, musty space. Why did I feel surprised? My own writing office, while roomy and bright, is no Homes & Gardens centerfold. Had I expected to find glamour in his? Did I believe literary achievement led to material luster?

A piece of paper was tacked above the window. In penned block letters it said:

If it takes 2,000 pages and 200 years, so be it.

Truth hit me like a hard slap on the back. Prize-winner or not, living legend or not, that’s how a novelist must approach his work, in the spirit of those words. No tricks, no shortcuts — and a glitzy office certainly won’t help either.

So be it.

We left the party a little later, after a bit of dessert. As our van bore along the dark forest roads, I no longer wondered why I’d gone to Churchill’s house in the wilderness, or what I’d been meant to see there.

I wanted to get back to my own humble desk.

You might also enjoy:

“Secrets of Creative Longevity”

“Nourishing the Creative Impulse”

“The Lonely Novelist’s Five-Point Producivity Plan“

Jim, one of my entrepreneurship students this summer, has led an extraordinary life.

Born in France, Jim sailed the world with his vagabond parents for fourteen years aboard a fifteen-meter aluminum schooner, all the while studying via correspondence course.

Jim’s sunny, open personality reflects a true worldview absorbed from growing up on the open sea-and in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Russia, Senegal, and the United States. Along the way, he gained fluency in English, French, and Spanish. And his Japanese is pretty sharp, too.

Today he works as—what else?—a sailboat designer. I imagine Jim slicing through the waters of his career the way his family’s sleek silver schooner once cut through blue-green ocean waves en route to yet another unexplored destination. What a life!

Jim’s happy. Yet like many of us, he looks forward to the day when his career will allow him to “go off the grid” at will. You might call Jim and others like him seekers of career ‘unpluggability’ (is that a real word?).

But how to start?

The way to unplug, says Jim, is to unplug.

Just as the key to getting things done is doing things, the key to unplugging is to unplug. A good place to start is with e-mail, the “killer app” that too often kills our ability to achieve. Go ahead: Not checking e-mail for a day won’t destroy your career. Neither will abandoning it for a week. In fact, people will probably be impressed that you’re involved in something more important than passing messages back and forth.

Maybe you have one of those jobs where everybody communicates by e-mail, despite sitting within shouting distance of each other. If so, consider reducing your mail-checking frequency. You could try a new policy with a signature like this:

In the interest of greater productivity, I’m checking and responding to e-mail messages just twice daily, at around 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. For urgent matters, please call me at ____________ (or poke your head outside the cubicle and shout).

The point is to train others (and maybe yourself) to honor the boundaries of a productive offline life.

If you want to go completely off the grid, consider applying techniques described in The 4-Hour Workweek. I’ve tried a few, including hiring India-based computer specialists through elance.com at $3 an hour (a decent wage in India but one that will make others think twice about basing careers on computer expertise).

For those committed to spending months or even years away, the issues around unplugging grow more challenging.

“The hard part is not unplugging but ‘replugging’ after a long time away from work,” says Jim. “To fully unplug and not worry about job issues when living away from it all, I need a skillset and a network of connections that will get me a satisfying job when I decide to re-plug myself, either by choice or by necessity.”

What you really need, I told Jim, is to start your own business.

But today’s topic is unplugging, and it’s time to practice what I preach. So I’m off to the island hideaway with the family for two solid weeks. No computers, no e-mail, no blogs, television, or cell phone. We’ll swim, hike, fish, agate-hunt, and play with the dog outdoors. We’ll plan nothing and savor everything. We’ll let the hours slip by as they will, let chance encounters stretch into an afternoon—or an entire day.

I hear the sun is shining off the grid, and the waters are clear.

You may also enjoy:

“The Perils of the Internet”

“How to Stay Stressed”

“Happiness is Turning Off the Computer“

Our Soul Shelter First-Person Essay Award bronze prize of $250 went to Florida writer Vance H. White for “The Bard of Gooseneck Bay,” an inspiring piece that reminds us how work of the hands and life close to the bone can yield fine philosophy.

• The Bard of Gooseneck Bay by Vance H. White •

It is often said that no one has greater impact on our lives than those who teach us. Truly great teachers are the ones for whom no other vocation is possible. Long after they supposedly retire, they can be found in our communities still teaching, constantly searching for opportunities to impart the knowledge accumulated over a lifetime. They have no choice. They are teachers and teachers must teach.

A stranger’s simple knock at my door announced the arrival of Warren Able in my life. A vigorous and unassuming man in his early sixties, he looked every inch the mad professor with his graying shoulder-length hair, faded yard-sale clothing, and totally disreputable beard. Piercing and intelligent hazel eyes calmly appraised me as he declared himself a recent graduate of bricklaying school who wished to propose a trade.

“As a bricklayer, I’m somewhat slow, but very precise,” he stated in the clipped and stilted tones of a transplanted Brit. “I understand you will soon be building your personal home and I would be pleased to construct the fireplace in exchange for carpentry instruction.”

What he said was true, as a career carpenter turned General Contractor I had a certain reputation in the community for skilled work and after many years of creating other people’s dream homes my turn had come round at last.

Looking carefully over the old man’s shoulder for a rusty shopping cart and the inevitable Will Work for Food placard and finding none, I hesitated a moment and then invited him in. Despite appearances, there was a dignified demeanor about the man that bespoke integrity and I was intrigued. In terms of life-lessons it was one the best decisions I ever made.

Seated inside at my kitchen table, he told stories of the turbulent Sixties as we got to know one another, and of his early years as a young and idealistic teacher in the Peace Corps. From the Sudan to the sun-washed shores of the Greek Isles, a Master’s degree in English literature had been his ticket to the world.

“Actually old stick, before I retired and attended bricklaying school, my last bit of construction experience concerned thatched huts in Africa,” he confided over a glass of wine.

Laughing at the irony of a 1960’s peacenik ultimately retiring as a Director of Education for the United States Air Force, we sealed our bargain with a handshake and parted company. Later, while clearing the table, I discovered an old and tattered copy of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road. The first of many literary gifts to follow, it was a very fine read about the Beat generation.

Warren’s first day on the job got off to a rather shaky start when the crew took one look, mistook him for a homeless person and threw him off the jobsite. Arriving late that day, I quickly apologized and made introductions. Rather than choosing to take offense, the old scholar politely shook hands all around and quietly went about his work.

Though the workmen were wary at first of this odd old bird who patiently mixed his mortar while lecturing my Labrador retriever who sat at rapt attention in hopes of wine, bread, and cheese, it wasn’t long before I began to notice changes in the men’s daily routine. They no longer scattered far and wide at lunch, electing instead to gather around and listen as the old man related timeless stories from the great works of literature. The radio was played less and less as people began to discuss what they had heard.

Having carefully laid his trap, the savvy old educator slowly began introducing his beloved books. The dog-eared copies he bought at yard sales and secondhand stores were placed in a cardboard box that became our “library.” A person making a selection would receive just enough background to pique their curiosity and it was, “Off you go to read it then.” Adventure stories proved the most popular with these poor, hard-working men of the Deep South and they eagerly devoured the works of James Fenimore Cooper, Richard Henry Dana, Daniel Defoe and Mark Twain among many others.

Once, the Professor disappeared for three whole days; giving rise to rampant worry and speculation. “He’s been captured by the treehuggers and released into the wild somewhere,” the plumbers joked. “He’s got good instincts and will eventually find his way home, be patient,” they counseled themseleves.

I couldn’t help but notice a lot of backward glances and worried expressions during those three days, but a part of our bargain together had been to let him proceed at his own pace and to respect his privacy, so I refrained from checking up on him at home. As it turned out, the old boy had simply immersed himself in Marcel Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past and lost track of time for a while.

As I sit writing this in my living room many years later, comforted by the cheery warmth of crackling logs in my fine English-style fireplace, I can’t help but feel I received the better part in the bargain. The things I taught him about load calculations, roof framing and general housecraft pale in comparison to the things I learned by simple exposure to this wise and gentle soul.

“Most people are like the great deep-water sharks,” he told me one day. “Engineered by nature without flotation bladders, these particular sharks swim through life lashing out and taking a bite at everything they encounter, exhausting themselves until they sink into the depths and are crushed by the pressure of their circumstances. Occasionally, a smart one will swim out of the deep water; separating himself from the pack, taking only what he needs and conserving his energy until he reaches a shallow ledge where he can rest. Be a smart shark, seek out your ledges in life upon which to rest and comfort yourself, refuse to be crushed by the pressure and despair of everyday living; and as the inevitable hour approaches, read this.”

I still have that battered paperback copy of the collected works of Dylan Thomas. I have no idea how long he carried it around with him but the original price on the cover reads thirty-five cents. And the passage he marked for me?

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night. …

Warren Able recently moved to Washington State, where he owns property purchased long ago in anticipation of his permanent home. In his sixty-seventh year now, armed with the tools of his trade and the construction knowledge he acquired, he is hard at work building his final ledge. Somewhere in the deep woods of the Pacific Northwest, the words of William Shakespeare ring out in equal measure to the rhythm of hammers — and the teacher is teaching.

Vance H. White is a daily writer who is endlessly fascinated with parking words next to each other and rearranging them until they make sense.

Says White of this winning essay: “It is my sincere hope that everyone should meet a Warren Able along life’s path. To live life in each and every precious day is the true secret to ‘making a living’ and has very little to do with empire-building.”

While cleaning out old paper files the other day, I ran across a printout of an intriguing e-mail message received nine and a half years ago from my friend and fellow entrepreneur Maxwell Thomas.

“I seldom send out mass e-mails,” Maxwell wrote, “but this one particularly struck me.”

Well, it struck me, too—hard. Reading “How to Stay Stressed” again made me recognize my own tendency, unchanged after more than nine years, to create self-importance-inflating “stress.”

I tried calling and e-mailing John Pinto, the apparent author, for permission to reprint his work, but was unable to contact him. Since the piece already appears online in several places, here it is for your enjoyment.

How to Stay Stressed

Although the De Anza Health Office long been an advocate of stress management, stress, tension, and burnout are still common complaints of students, faculty, and staff alike. On account of this, we have come to the following conclusion: YOU ALL WANT TO STAY STRESSED! The following provides you with a few reasons why.

Stress Helps You Seem Important
Anyone as stressed as you must be working very hard and, therefore, is probably doing something very crucial.

It Helps You to Maintain Personal Distance and Avoid Intimacy
Anyone as busy as you are certainly can’t be expected to form emotional attachments to anyone. And let’s face it, you’re not much fun to be around anyway.

It Helps You Avoid Responsibilities
Obviously you are too stressed to be given any more work. This gets you off the hook for all the mundane chores; let someone else take care of them.

It Gives You a Chemical Rush
Stress might be considered a cheap thrill, and you can give yourself a “hit” anytime you choose. But be careful, you might get addicted to your own adrenaline.

It Helps You Avoid Success
Why risk being “successful” when by simply staying stressed you can avoid all of that? Stress can keep your performance level low enough that success will never be a threat.

Stress Also Lets You Keep Your Authoritarian Management Style
The authoritarian style of “Just do what I say!” is generally permissible under crisis conditions. If you maintain a permanently stressed crisis atmosphere, you can justify an authoritarian style all the time.

Are you worried now about how to stay stressed? You’ll have no trouble if you practice the following clinically proven methods:

Never Exercise
Exercise wastes a lot of time that could be spent worrying.

Eat Anything You Want
Hey, if cigarette smoke can’t cleanse your system, a balanced diet isn’t likely to.

Gain Weight
Work hard at staying at least 25 pounds over your recommended weight.

Take Plenty of Stimulants
The old standards of caffeine, nicotine, and sugar will continue to do the job just fine.

Avoid “Woo-Woo” Practices
Ignore the evidence suggesting that meditation, yoga, deep breathing, and/or mental imaging help to reduce stress. The Protestant work ethic is good for everyone, Protestant or not.

Get Rid of Your Social Support System
Let the few friends who are willing to tolerate you know that you concern yourself with friendships only if you have time, and you never have time. If a few people persist in trying to be your friend, avoid them.

Personalize All Criticism
Anyone who criticizes any aspect of your work, family, dog, house, or car is mounting a personal attack. Don’t take time to listen, be offended, then return the attack!

Throw Out Your Sense of Humor
Staying stressed is no laughing matter, and it shouldn’t be treated as one.

Males and Females Alike: Be Macho
Never ask for help, and if you want it done right, do it yourself!

Become a Workaholic
Put work before everything else, and be sure to take work home evenings and weekends. Keep reminding yourself that vacations are for sissies.

Discard Good Time Management Skills
Schedule in more activities every day than you can possibly get done and then worry about all whenever you get a chance.

Procrastinate
Putting things off to the last second always produces a marvelous amount of stress.

Worry About Things You Can’t Control
Worry about the stock market, earthquakes, the approaching Ice Age, you know, all the big issues.

Become Not Only a Perfectionist but Set Impossibly High Standards
… and either beat yourself up, or feel guilty, depressed, discouraged, and/or inadequate when you don’t meet them.

You may also enjoy:

“Fixing a Broken Work Model”

“Life Without Principle (or Interest)”

“Opting Out of the Deferred Life Plan“

I don’t write novels in hopes of scoring rave reviews. To do so would probably be self-defeating anyway, resulting in books that reeked of contrivance and dishonesty, books devoid of the necessary personal urgency that makes fiction resonant.

Still, when my debut novel elicited a wave of praise, I felt buoyed. And by turns, when my second novel evoked consternation for breaking certain rules, confusion for being dense and unconventional, or sheer impatience for not being a beach-read, I found it hard to escape feeling downcast.

On a conscious level I knew better than to take such asinine critical complaints seriously. I didn’t write the novel for reviewers, and even suspected early on that they wouldn’t “get it.” (In fact, I’d pledged to avoid reading reviews altogether, and for the most part kept this pledge.) But alas, it’s all too easy to know when one’s work is meeting with indifference or scorn.

While not really caring who disliked my book, why couldn’t I shake off this critical reproach? Like I’ve said, my reasons for making literary art were and are entirely personal. I share John Steinbeck’s sentiments and write because

I feel good when I am doing it — better than when I am not. I find joy in the texture and tone and rhythms of words and sentences, and when these happily combine in a ‘thing’ that has texture and tone and emotion and design and architecture, there comes a fine feeling — a satisfaction like that which follows good and shared love. If there have been difficulties and failures overcome, these may even add to the satisfaction.

In other words, the work itself is always the best reward. This holds true for me when I think back to the glowing critical reception of my first book. I may have felt buoyed by the praise that novel received, but that was nothing — absolutely nothing — compared to the elation that came of creating the book’s characters, discovering its story, painting its world, and wrestling with its themes.

The longer I lead this literary life, the clearer it becomes to me: reviews ought to have no effect on a novelist or other artist, for the challenges and triumphs entailed in the process of creation will give the artist as much artistic agony or ecstasy as he or she could ever want.

Rainer Maria Rilke (the main character in my ‘ill-received’ new novel) once wrote:

Young person anywhere, in whom something is rising up that causes you to shiver, make use of the fact that no one knows you. And if they contradict you — those who take you for a nobody; and if they give you up completely — those with whom you would associate; and if they pretend you don’t exist on account of your dear ideas: what is this clear danger, which holds you together inside yourself, compared to the cunning hostility of later fame, which makes you impotent by scattering you? Beg no one to speak of you, not even contemptuously. And when time goes by and you mark your name coming around amongst people, take it no more seriously than everything else you find in their mouths. Think: it has become poorly. And put it away from you. Take another name, any, so that God can call you in the night. And hide it from everyone.

There’s a lesson in longevity here, for any who will listen.

And speaking of longevity, this NPR interview from last January features one of the most prolific writer/filmmakers of our era, the legendary Woody Allen, now 72, offering his own perspective on matters of success and reputation:

-NPR: Do you think you’ve learned anything about how to persist, how to keep creating, how to keep challenging yourself?

Allen: …The only thing that I think I have learned over the years (but it wasn’t when I got older, I learned it when I was younger) was, if you don’t think about yourself creatively, it’s better. If you just keep your nose to the grindstone, don’t read your reviews, don’t believe them when they tell you you’re great, don’t worry if they tell you you’re no good, don’t get caught up with awards, don’t get caught up with all the peripheral nonsense of the business, grosses, high grosses or low grosses. Just shut up and make your movies. And that really works fine. That’s the only thing I’ve learned. I learned it many years ago. I was young, and I never learned anything since.

Now back to the grindstone I happily go.

You might also enjoy:

“Fulfillment: A Work in Progress”

“Trust Thyself”

“What We Really Need to be Happy“

My Dad had some choice 1930s phrases for exhorting us to work hard and act with integrity:

“Knuckle down!”

“Put some elbow grease into it!”

“Use the right tool for the job.”

“Straighten up and fly right.”

And the old reliable “Thatta boy!”

Maybe that’s one reason Ainsley Drew’s runner-up prize winning essay, Knuckle Down, Knuckle Up, appeals so strongly.

Dad would’ve been confused by Ainsley’s piece, would’ve failed to see the hard work and sweat oozing from a writer’s life. That’s okay. Twenty years from now I’ll be confused about how my kids are earning a living, too. Just hope I can remember when then.

Knuckle Down, Knuckle Up

The influx of work has once again slowed to a trickle, which means that it’s back to verbal bloodsport for me and my other half. Keywords and phrases of recent arguments: entitlement, worry, melodramatic, I’m going to/why don’t you just move back to New York, really?!, you act like the sky is falling, and the tried-but-true f*ck. If my life were a well-trafficked blog I could do a tag cloud.

For those Portland residents who didn’t see our tantrum both in Unthank Park as well as on the corner of Shaver, the conclusion came after my boyfriend and business partner was gently hit by a truck as he skated after me. We talked it out from a seated position, the conversation went nowhere, and I got so hungry that we decided to put the fight on hold while we went out for Mediterranean food.

He was okay. The truck didn’t hit him hard. Jesus Christ, that sounds insensitive.

I decided that there has to be a deeper psychological component to our word combat. I mean, we’re not actually crazy, even though he tells me I need to “see someone.” We’re in love. Really, we are.

So I used Google to try to find an explanation, a sentence that, in and of itself, should clue me in as to how far along defecation creek my mental canoe has gone afloat.

Here was this little tidbit I dug up from the annals of Psychology Today, my favorite magazine to read in the library of my high-school when I wanted to seem “smart”:

Couples fight about money more than any other issue. This is as true of couples who stay married as of couples who wind up divorcing. The main financial matters couples fight over include levels of spending and saving (since women tend to think men should make more, while men tend to think that women should spend less), the amount of time spent working, differences in long-term financial goals such as retirement savings, and money chores such as balancing the checkbook and paying bills. [Psychology Today Magazine, Nov/Dec 2004]

Considering that we have no money to worry about saving, spending, or balancing in any way other than in a neat stack of quarters on the bedside table for bus fare, I don’t think this article is appropriate. Moreover, we work together, and we love what we do, so “time spent working” isn’t an issue. Retirement, for everyone in this country and particularly for freelance artists, is basically on par with a unicorn-versus-narwhal dance-off. It isn’t going to happen.

So, in conclusion, I suppose we don’t fight about money, although I’m no psychologist. I believe we fight ‘cause we want someone to give us a chance at a long-term gig, may it be corporate blogging or a company’s advertising copy and editing. And what adds to the short kids’ cage match is that we’re wholly poor, which makes us skip meals, and skipping meals makes us cranky. Two only children who are craving burritos and yet are forced instead to spend the afternoon together typing out compelling prose about bourgeoisie necessities such as vacation packages and software components. It’s basically the equivalent of taking two beta fish and tossing them into the same bowl, then dubbing over sound effects of hyenas ripping out each others throats. And that’s on a good day.

Since he thinks that we fight because I stress over money, I figure I have to get money for both of us in order to stop the endless fight. Money equals clients, in the grand scheme of things. I don’t know how to get clients—a gold lamé mini-dress, pleather stilettos, and a large thumb, perhaps—but I’m trying.

This morning I was still pretty keyed up, but I kept it to myself. My thoughts ranged from What does he know anyway? He at least has a part-time DJ gig to feed him to I don’t care about money, I wear the same clothes I did in high-school. Literally. It’s true.

Then I lost forty dollars on my way to the grocery store and the frenzied cycle of homicidal rage and abject terror that ensued—as well as the sudden, histrionic shift of the internal dialog—led me to believe that perhaps the boy is right. Maybe I do worry about money. Maybe I even, daresay, stress about it. Maybe I should see someone. And by someone I mean the kind folks at the local Food Stamp Office. Or a temp agency. Or my mom.

Adding to my generally apoplectic worldview is that I have no idea how to take the work we’re currently doing and apply it to the job hunt. One of our employers is at the helm of a sinking ship enterprise, and in response to a project we were sent an email about what we should be gearing our work towards. The meandering message and accompanying asinine images included MTV celebrities from circa 2000 as well as washed up socialites and the phrases like we were ballin’ and he came threw and got laced. [Editor’s Note: Yes, that spelling.] Scrolling through the suggested examples made me want to drink a liter of bleach and jump off of my roof. I couldn’t tell if it was serious. But, again, it’s writing for a living.

Sometimes it feels like freelance work is a lot like high-school, only without the dewy hormone-induced glow that arrives every morning. I’m grateful to be in this with someone as pigheaded, confrontationally capable, and small as me. It makes for a delightful off-road spectacle, if nothing else.

* * *

About the Writer

Ainsley Drew is a New York native currently spilling ink in the puddle known as Portland, Oregon. She and her cohort, Simon Goetz, work as a team of copywriters under the name Ministry of Imagery. Hire them to write for you and they will eat their own words. Ainsley’s work has appeared in Spindle and GO NYC Magazine, and she is the author of the blog Jerk Ethic. She has eleven spring-loaded fingers, so she can type faster than you.

You may also enjoy:

“The Truth About Quitting and other winners”

“Jack London on Upward Mobility”

“Twenty-Seven Years of Zen Destroyed My Life“

It’s a joy to present the Second Place Winner in our Soul Shelter First-Person Essay Award. Writer Yuvi Zalkow receives $500 for “Dogs & Dolphins,” which we present below. Says Mr. Zalkow:

I never had the courage, or whatever you want to call it, to drop everything to find a better life, but it’s been brewing in me to describe my take on how one might meander their way to that better life (even through slow, awkward, less-decisive steps). I was excited to see that Soul Shelter had some very compelling and diverse and non-dogmatic ways to talk about this subject. And so this contest got me started writing about the dolphins. …

• Dogs & Dolphins by Yuvi Zalkow •

I feel like this should be an essay about how I quit my terrible job to do the thing I’d always dreamed of doing and how it turned out that I became even more successful (financially, emotionally, spiritually, sensually) than before. I want to tell you that I left a horrible corporate environment and started my own non-profit helping people in need. I want to tell you about the lives I’ve saved. I want to tell you a story full of courage and heroism and salvation. I want to tell you that I rescue dogs and help the dolphins.

But I don’t have any of those stories. It’s not that I don’t like dogs and dolphins. In fact I’m a fan of both species. But my story is less dramatic and less amazing. It won’t make you cry. It’s not shocking or life altering. It goes in small steps, if it steps at all.

My story does start off the way a typical inspirational story is supposed to start: I hated my job. I was working too hard. I was annoyed and exhausted. I was angry that I wasn’t doing the things I most wanted to do in my life. …

My terrible job goes like this: I was working as a software developer at an oversized multinational corporation. There was a lot of pressure at this job and I was tired of the hours. I came home every night with worries about what needed to be done the next day—or what needed to be done later that night before the China or India team picked up where my team left off.

What I really wanted to do was write stories. I wanted to tell fictional stories of people stuck at big companies—I didn’t actually want to be one of those people. And I was too tired to tell these stories after I was done with work.

I didn’t quit right away even though that seems like the thing to do if you plan to be the narrator of an inspirational story. I liked having enough money to eat an overpriced meal and drink an overpriced cocktail. I didn’t really want to lose that pleasure.

So I took a small step, maybe even a cowardly step. I told my boss that I wanted to help our group write better documentation. I volunteered to do all the documentation for my group of seven software developers. I figured that writing about computers was a little closer to my passion of telling stories than programming a computer. This request was fine by my boss because we were behind on our documentation. We were behind on our documentation because all engineering groups are behind on their documentation. You should know that any self-respecting engineer refuses to document what they are doing. And either because I lacked self-respect or because I wasn’t an engineer at heart, this task appealed to me. My boss wasn’t sure he heard me clearly when I made this request: “You want to do what now?”

Once I got confident enough in my ability to do this kind of work, I began looking for a job elsewhere as a technical writer. I felt that this big company was a bit too dreary a place to work and that it might be more lively elsewhere, a smaller company, or perhaps just doing some independent consulting. It turned out that there was a need for writers with my kind of technical background. So I found another job and quit the corporate gig.

Pretty soon, I became good enough in my technical writing skills to negotiate working slightly fewer hours. When I say slightly fewer hours, I mean that I trimmed about five hours off my work week. Not a big difference, but it afforded me some useful hours to keep at the writing practice.

I began writing more stories. I found a way to get a master’s in creative writing without quitting my day job—by getting into one of the many low-residency master’s programs around the country. I expected to write stories about the silly work environments where I had worked, but it didn’t go that way. I wrote about outcasts and drinkers and fathers and sons and the dead and the desperate and ex-husbands and ex-wives and lonely people saying hello at the coffee shop. That’s where the energy took me and I went with it.

And so here I am today. Five years later. My job isn’t amazing, but it is reasonably more fun than before. I don’t have a ton of time to write, but I have more time to write than before. My student loan payments are not ideal, but they’re not too bad. I can’t afford to drink as many cocktails as before, but I still enjoy a Manhattan when I’m craving one. I’ve made time to teach writing on a volunteer basis. I haven’t written the great American novel, but my stories are better than before. I hope.

I can’t say that the characters in my stories have saved any dogs or dolphins, but on their better days, they make a trip to the beach and they look out at the vast horizon. They take a good, long moment to see what they can see. And then they check the time and realize they should probably get back to work.

• the end •

Yuvi Zalkow lives writes works eats breathes bikes walks sleeps and brushes his teeth in Portland, OR, in a house that his wife says is Robin Egg Blue. He is currently working on a novel and in the MFA program at Antioch University.

(editor’s note: the guy in the picture above is not Yuvi Zalkow. We do not know the guy, and neither does Yuvi.)