From a recent talk Erik Spiekermann gave.
We work for your customers. We may have to take their side at times.
Challenge us. Complacency is the enemy of great work.
We don’t give answers. Unless we can explore your question.
We are not suppliers. Partnership gets the best results.
Talk to us. We thrive on feedback.
Trust us. You hired us because we can do something you cannot do.
Pay us. Our work adds to your bottom line, so invest in our future.
“Speed and Deep are not opposites.
Cooperation doesn’t mean consensus.
Idea generation is not idea selection.
Failure is part of the process.
Everything restarts as soon as it is finished.”
“What the issue comes down to for me is this:
I believe that life happens on two levels. The body-level tells us to go commercial. The soul-level tells us to follow our hearts.
If you’re lucky, you’re like Bruce Springsteen. You live on the heart level and you never have to leave it. You ignore every concept of “what will sell.” Instead you dive deep into your own world and your own passions. You go from Born to Run to Darkness on the Edge of Town to The River to Born in the USA and you keep going.
If you’re the Boss, you don’t have to sell out. You don’t have to pander to your audience. Instead you lead them. They want you to. You tell your story, follow your obsessions—and, holy Asbury Park, your secret, inner, crazy life turns out to be their secret inner crazy life too.”
I’ve got friends on both sides of this argument.
Most of the ones on the “for love” side do that for a living—they tell people how to do what you love for a living.
Most of the ones on the “for money” side seem to say so just to spite the guys on the love side.
Pressfield helps me to cut through the platitudes and go to my story: what’s been my experience?
I’ve been in safe and profitable jobs. For one reason or another I’ve quit every one.
I’ve been enthusiastic about lots of stuff — been in love a lot — and most of those haven’t made me much money.
But I seem to make better friends through the love stuff. (Most of the friends that I mentioned above, in fact. Except for one, whom I met when I was in one of those jobs I quit).
And doing the love stuff has led me to where I am now, creating a learning community for online entrepreneurs. I can’t tell if this one’s more for the love or for the money. I’m hoping it’ll do both nicely.
And it should be said, of all the love stuff I’ve done, I never really went all in on any of them. This is the first time I’ve had enough experience, stones and muscles to focus and dedicate myself to anything.
So that’s my new answer to the question: what does your own experience tell you?
“The pay’s not great but the work is hard.”
“Just get 5 minutes that kills everywhere — you don’t have that you don’t have anything. All these comedians say, ‘I’ve got 2 hours.’ Who wants to hear two hours of material!? Just get 5 minutes that kills everywhere. You only need 20 minutes in LA to become a star.”
This was Leno’s advice to Rob when Rob was getting started in comedy. Everyone who saw him then says Jay was the best. We all know now he’s also a smart businessman.
“Since copywriting is interface design, you can do an awful lot of great design in a text editor. Don’t worry about where things will go, or how they will fit. Worry about explaining it clearly and then build the rest of the interface around that explanation.”
“Who am I kiddin’ [believing I can beat the champ]? I ain’t even in the guy’s league… It don’t matter, ’cause I was nobody before… I was nobody. That don’t matter either, ya know… It really don’t matter if I lose this fight. It really don’t matter if this guy opens my head, either. ‘Cause all I wanna do is go the distance. Nobody’s ever gone the distance with Creed. And if I can go that distance, ya see, and that bell rings, ya know, and I’m still standin’, I’m gonna know for the first time in my life, ya see, that I weren’t just another bum from the neighborhood. […]
When Rocky says, ‘Cause all I wanna do is go the distance,’ he has switched from Story ‘A’ to Story ‘B.’ This is monumental. It is his true victory, hours before the fight itself. Because he has moved from delusion to reality. […]
I’ve been asking myself lately, What Story “A” am I believing about myself right now? Is there a Story “B” lurking somewhere? If so, what is it?”
“Two quick points. Not every idea is going to work. Know that going in. Ideas tend to follow the path of least resistance and more often than not that path is the one where you find yourself talking an idea to death, by getting hung up on the ‘what ifs.’ So you need to actively push ideas out and embrace failure. Fail spectacularly whenever possible.
Secondly, every single person I have ever met or corresponded with about leaving the work-for-hire world and trying to create something of their own, something that they really care about, says exactly the same thing. Win, lose or draw they always express the same thought and most of the time they say it in exactly these words.
What they say is, ‘I should have done this sooner.’”
“The vast majority of people who visit your site will be casual visitors. It’s them you have to design your site for. The people who really care will find what they want by themselves.
The median visitor will arrive with their finger poised on the Back button. Think about your own experience: most links you follow lead to something lame. Anyone who has used the web for more than a couple weeks has been trained to click on Back after following a link. So your site has to say “Wait! Don’t click on Back. This site isn’t lame. Look at this, for example.”
There are two things you have to do to make people pause. The most important is to explain, as concisely as possible, what the hell your site is about. […] the other […] is to give people everything you’ve got, right away.
In the best case these two suggestions get combined: you tell visitors what your site is about by showing them.”
Sounds pretty simple. It will always be easier to design your site if what you do/offer is interesting.