I recently came across a LinkedIn post on how to get your book on the New York Times best seller list. The tips themselves were practical, and described pretty much what I’d seen several recently successful business and productivity authors do. And it was one of the most depressing things I’ve read in a while – and let’s face it, there’s stiff competition for that these days.
The gist of the article was to minimise the focus on writing, forget your inner poet and embrace your inner CEO instead. It was about marketing, building a brand, leverage, products, to be the one percent of the one percent who ‘make it’. And there’s nothing wrong with that if that’s what you want to do.
But what the author didn’t talk about was what you might lose if you follow their plan. Because even those who make the best seller list will tell you it felt good for maybe 24 hours. Sometimes less. And there they are, back in their same body, with all the same insecurities they had the day before, in their same life. Perhaps wealthier, likely with more doors opening, and now faced with even more opportunities that pull them away from what made them love writing or their field of interest in the first place, with the added pressure to do it again.
And if you don’t make that not so holy grail? What gets lost when we swap art for algorithms, grace for grind, magic for marketing? There’s a risk we kill the very things that make life worth living and drive away the people we most want to connect with through relentless hustle. And the risk to us as a society? It’s a lot of noise with very little substance.
I’m not saying to give up on big dreams. Someone is going to be top of the best seller list, win gold at the Olympics, or build a billion dollar business. Why not you? But there is also greatness in the far more humble impact you can have closer to home, in real people’s lives, by embodying what you hold most dear.
Helen Mentha 