The Game of Numbers
My friend Nick Murray is an advisor and guru to financial planners, i.e. the guys and gals who manage your investing portfolio if you’re lucky enough to have one.
Nick wrote a book a few years ago called The Game of Numbers. I can’t recommend it highly enough to you add me—artists and writers and creative people of all kinds—and NOT for any advice about money.
Apparently in the financial planning biz, a huge part of the game is COLD CALLING. You gotta pick up the phone and pitch yourself to potential clients.
Can you guess where this is going?
Resistance.
Financial planners HATE cold calling. It’s agony. It’s rejection. You feel like a cheap hustler.
Many aspiring planners avoid it. Result: their business stalls or even fails.
Nick’s advice to these young planners:
Make three calls a day, no matter what.
Take no notice of your success rate.
Keep making those calls, no matter how much you hate it.
He calls this “the game of numbers” because as the number of calls pile up, just by sheer attrition you will get a few successes. Then a few more. And a few more after that.
The trick, Nick says, is to trust the numbers. Keep dialing. Keep cold calling.
The ability to do this, Nick believes, is the difference between success and failure.
I love The Game of Numbers because it applies absolutely to you and me as writers and artists.
Keep grinding. Keep showing up. Keep putting in the work.
Take no notice of how “good” your stuff is at the end of each day. Just get up the next day and keep striving, keep hammering, keep working.
The Muse is watching. When she sees the numbers pile up day after day, she smiles. Ah, she thinks, this gal or guy is for real.
And sooner or later, just like the financial planner making cold calls, the numbers begin to pay off. The work gets better. Our stuff begins to be noticed. We ourselves begin to believe, “Yes, I AM an artist. Indeed I AM a writer.”
Michael Jordan did not learn to shoot the turn-around fadeaway from the corner by magic. He played the game of numbers.
Get Nick’s book. It’s a life-changer. The Game of Numbers by Nick Murray.
DO THE WORK
Steve shows you the predictable Resistance points that every writer hits in a work-in-progress and then shows you how to deal with each one of these sticking points. This book shows you how to keep going with your work.
THE AUTHENTIC SWING
A short book about the writing of a first novel: for Steve, The Legend of Bagger Vance. Having failed with three earlier attempts at novels, here's how Steve finally succeeded.
NOBODY WANTS TO READ YOUR SH*T
Steve shares his "lessons learned" from the trenches of the five different writing careers—advertising, screenwriting, fiction, nonfiction, and self-help. This is tradecraft. An MFA in Writing in 197 pages.
TURNING PRO
Amateurs have amateur habits. Pros have pro habits. When we turn pro, we give up the comfortable life but we find our power. Steve answers the question, "How do we overcome Resistance?"
Thank you so much my dear Steve.
I send at once my old mentor -never met him- who said it beautifully: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMxcnAPQ-hU
I also send a thought of him that brought tears to my eyes before a few days – hadn’t heard that for many years. We can’t hear fundamentals often enough: https://www.instagram.com/p/DHbGSbiSsx8/
Dear Steve, I feel the ratios these times must be like 1 in the 1.000 for me. That’s because that is my path. Doing 1.000 expanded things to get to a few lines, if I get there. A strange ratio but what can I do.
It’s a ratio so it is valuable for its own shake.
p.s. I can’t find that book in Greece – its on Amazon but its 150 euros price, while the original is about 45, and also Diana warns about the integrity of Amazon. So I’ll have to wait for a right opportunity, his page now only sends it to Canada and US.
A book on your desk is not going to grow legs to go out and sell itself. I absolutely do not like the query process. I have stacks of rejections. But I believe in the story I wrote. Most important, I believe in the children for whom I wrote the story. I won’t let them down. So off the book goes yet again.
If little old me, won’t quit, maybe you shouldn’t either. Thanks Steve for reminding us to keep putting our work out there.
Thank you for the encouragement! It’s so much easier to do other “necessary” things than it is to sit down and do the work. However, I choose to do the work. Every day. One of my daily affirmations, thanks to you, is: “I resist the resistance!” Thank you!
Dear Steve,
The 13th century Sufi mystic and poet Rumi also said this in his poem
“Be courageous and discipline yourself.
Work. Keep digging your well.
Don’t think about getting off from work.
Submit to a daily practice.
Your loyalty to that is a ring on the door.
Keep knocking, and the joy inside
will eventually open a window
and look out to see who’s there.”
What is true is always true.
Good one, Donna.
Thank you so much for this. Really needed to hear it today. Peace.
Thank you.
I keep a card in my meditation book :
CONFRONT THE DIFFICULT
WHILE IT IS STILL EASY
ACCOMPLISH THE GREAT TASK
BY A SERIES OF SMALL ACTS
Tao te ching
As a reminder of what a series of small acts can do, I have a photo of cooking utensils, a fish, and some greens on a kitchen counter that I found somewhere. Fixing dinner can be difficult, daunting sometimes. Wash the greens, wash and season the fish. Heat the skillet, melt the butter. Cook the fish, add the greens. Serve. Eat.
This meditation book has now found its way to my desk to tell me to break down the daunting process of recording a song in unfamiliar recording devices. One. Thing. At. A. Time.= Song that I can share through my computer..
The law of accumulation. It is existent in all our acts and paths, dear Muriel, so I will add to your great philosophy on life this idea I remember from the past studies: everything has 4 parts – cause, effect, direction, destination.
Thank you once again. Perfect timing as always. I am finding this to be true for me as I begin to work towards launching a new YouTube channel and work on writing. As the old adage goes “practice makes perfect “ and so it does. Keep going everyone. Believe! Believe! Believe!
As a “sales guy” going way back, the old way of saying this, as a pavement pounder, was all about knocking on doors (analog version?). It added something visceral. REAL interaction and REAL body language interpretations, as you started by first digging in to determine the needs of a customer and then adapting your interaction to giving them reasons to buy, versus them being sold. What does this have to do with your point, with which I agree most whole heartedly? It means that the quality of the interaction is pivitol to just going through the numbers. Will a half hearted attempt yield results? Yes, to some degree. However, your strike ratio improves through giving every single one the passion it deserves. I would rather do 10 passionate attempts than 100 half hearted versions. It’s very hard to do, given todays email blitzes and telephone solicitations. I delete, or disregard any attempt and I don’t think I am totally alone, unless someone is ready to press flesh first. The challenge is to solicit to get that opportunity and my method is referral, referral, referral and I haven’t missed a meal. Maybe I should write a book?
Dear Brian, of course you should write one. As long as the parts are passionate like the sales that you would hunt after. And if they become dim after some time, maybe it will be because passion, always in you, wants now a new shape wherein to ignite -that can be all, and that’s where I am now too, so sharing part of my experience.
I found the law of averages works on clothes too! When I go to buy a cloth, see what I discovered: wasting no time, at a big shopping store I will have my eyes wide open to find about 15 clothes that really satisfy my eye. When I’m close to the 15, I am like a bear – when I don’t use a clothes cart, I’m hidden under the clothes.
And guess what happens: I try them all in the fitting room. And guess – about 1 every 15 clothes is perfect. The others are mostly average or awful, and a bit good or just very good.
My point is, the law of averages works possibly anywhere.
Wish my best.
I used to belong to this art group. Art society, they like to say. Every couple months they would have an exhibit that we all participated in. A hand picked juror of prominence would judge the works and they would hand out awards at the soirée. In the 6-7 years I participated I was never acknowledged, not even once. In my opinion, even in hindsight, the works of many of the winners of prizes was mundane. But that’s just me.
The dichotomy has always been that when my work is in galleries it sells. I’ve always been perplexed as to why I can resonate there but not the other, with my peers.
After 5 years I asked the president why she thought that was. She felt my work was too dark, in color and mood.
Hummm.
Just as you wrote, Steve, you have to believe in yourself. Ya have to keep making that cold call to whomever and however. Resistance would tell me to change my direction. Paint landscapes and flowers in pastel colors and win that ribbon.
But that isn’t who I am.
My energy is emotional and I can’t expect everyone to get it. That cold call has to be diligent to find others who relate. Along the way I will get better at what I do, but not if I don’t keep trying.
Great insight dear Kathy. Yes, sometimes the soil is shallow and even if you plant the seeds it just doesn’t work. So there is another essential: the soil. Where do we plant? I’ve planted for years in one of the most distrucive soils. It was disastreous for my energy. Still, having some scientifice psychological skills, I became tougher by that. But, what I lost that I could have on the better soil!!!
So the combination of the law ofaverages combined with the search for the soil sounds good!
Steve – thanks for your reminder on “The Game of Numbers.” I got a copy years ago on your advice. It is a life changer. Nick writes eloquently and forcefully about what it takes.
And he’s right.
Thanks again.
Great shoutout to Nick Murray. He has been my mentor for 21 years in the profession, his words, plus your words, got me through two and half years of going door-to-door to build client relationships back in 2004 until referrals took over. I went from a 25 year old scrub with no clients knocking on residential door after door (22,000 low end count) to building one of the most successful practices in So Cal with just wonderful and kind client families. Resistance was an asshole I had to tame multiple times per day, still do! Thanks to you and Nick, I made it! Love that you wrote about Nick today, you’re both my heroes. Thank you!
Had to share today’s quote at the gym.
I hate every minute of training, but I said, ” Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.” Muhammed Ali.
Great posts today. Thank you all.
Actually, Nick wrote that book long ago. As a financial planner myself, I’ll let everyone know that ‘cold-calling’ isn’t as widely practiced today as it once was, but the path of a new financial advisor is similar to that of a new writer; it’s a grind and takes hard work and perseverance, doing things every day and failing, much more often than not, before achieving a breakthrough. Steve is spot-on; this book has much to teach about writing and overcoming life’s adversities.
Thank you Kevin. If you can explain that difference a bit more it would possibly be quite interesting.
I wish you my best.
Dilbert creator Scott Adams calls this a systems approach, making it easy for luck to find you by grinding away no matter what.
It helps to be playful, to have a sense of humor about how difficult life is. As a sales manager once overheard two of his people talking: “One says he’d had a great day: ‘Seventy contacts.’ To which the other replies, ‘Yeah. I didn’t sell anything, either.'”
Spot-on, as usual, Steve—As I read this post, I relived my sense of rejection felt after only a few cold calls to managers, seeking representation for myself & my work: I needed to hear this on this drizzly, melancholic morning, Brother Steven… Don’t know how you do it, but you always seem to put a finger on the fineries of maintaining one’s motivation to forge ahead in one’s respective “War of Art”—Bravo, bruh!
Thank you Steven for this important reminder.
I’m just finishing up my first book now and guess what? It’s about the attribute of persistence. I luckily came to see it as the main engine that provides that motivational push to succeed in any endeavour. Without it the numbers never happen.
It’s known by many names like tenacity, perseverance, doggedness, or grit. These are the things that make the numbers accumulate and eventually add up in our favour.
I think that my main contribution to this topic, if I can call it that, is this: While resistance lives in our thinking head brain, our persistent nature lives in our feeling gut brain. It’s a human drive not a thought. If it were just a thought we could teach it in school like math or language. We could then have students who go out into the world and be persistent in all things that matter. Things like patience, generosity, humility, courtesy, self-control, joy, altruism, the list goes on.
But does knowing the cybernetics of this stuff automatically enable you to dig in and do the work?
Not necessarily. For that you still need one more essential thing. It’s what author Simon Senek calls your big “why”. He says: “Your WHY is fixed, VISION is more fluid.”
Resistance likes to attack your vision. At least it tries that on me every day. For example, I started writing this book back in 2016. It’s now 2025 and I’m not done yet.
But my “why” is like a permanent tattoo on the fabric of my soul.
Steven, on days when I ‘feel’ the drive of persistence in my gut and together know ‘why’ I’m doing this work, I become the armed and prepared “warrior” you refer to in your book “The War of Art”.
Dear David, I have a parallel situation: my book is on the 6th year now, about 6000 hours of work, and a last crescento remains until it is over. But it is yet not done.
The war you speak of is on. Our soul knows also what it wants to do, it is sure for this work of art.
Resistance is waking up every morning happy, well rested and ready to go full in — my dear Steve, how beautiful it would be to write a book on Resistance seen from this perspective? A wealthy man on holiday or something, strong and beautiful (=hard and cunning), as the “protagonist” – the antagonist being the protagonist -, who is really something. What an even more expanding point of view! Very entertaining too: remember what the old monk wanted to destroy in the fires in the Name of the Rose? —
So, David, I am waiting eagerly until your book is over.
Dear Tolis, thank you for comment. Just knowing that someone is “waiting eagerly until your book is over” means a lot to me. Glad to hear that your book is coming along. Sounds like to won’t be too long before you get finished too. I myself are aiming at being done all the final editing by my birthday at the end of next month. After that it’s just formatting to create the actual ready-to-print book. I have the program in my PC to do all of that work. That way I have complete control of everything. If you like to see the finished cover art just go to my blog: https://mobiusman.com/interview-me/
David, I got the points there right away. Indeed I also long for that let’s call it motivational energy, being like a kick in the gut and not just a foggy situation. Two books that came to my mind when I read your points that may also serve you in the future development are these:
1. Thinking, Fast and Slow by nobelist Daniel Kahneman (writes about the 2 systems of the mind, the rational and the intuitive)
2. The Energy Paradox by Steven Gundry, a book that explains how the gut works its miracle on our health and why it is a main source of our energy and moods and also why it is a main source sending important signals -as long as it is healthy- at many of our inner physical systems.
Ah, a David and a Steven again. “sounds like providence to me”, (1:40”) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_Pp75bFZes
The book that changed my life and the capybara clicker
I always thought if I ever had another win, writingwise, I’d celebrate that here (versus calling my mom, for example). Well, I did. I’ll link to it this summer.
Steve often hammers on the same themes over and over, and someone recently took issue with that — as if it was a bad thing. Someone else came to Steve’s defense; a lot of us need to hear the same thing over and over before we get it. I’m one of them.
The most helpful post lately was “twenty percent for new business.” I’m guessing that will have been the turning point for me. We shall see!
Maureen, Steven is not alone in staying in the sme lane as far an anchor topic goes. Seth Godin has been doing that for years and he’s done very well indeed. Like you, I appreciate that kind of hammering to drive home the core messaging that we want the public to get. I’m doing the same thing in each chpter of my own upcoming non-fiction book. Stay well.
Thanks!
This site is perfect for today’s game! Soundmap Guessr
The Game of Numbers is a strategic math-based game that challenges players to solve puzzles and make calculations to win. Perfect for sharpening your mind, it blends fun with logic. Try it now and master the numbers! Keyword: alv laskuri.
… your words always seem to find me just when I need them most, I’m so grateful to Charles Daly for sharing your name and tidbits of wisdom. I look forward to my weekly Wednesday nudge.
p.s. I’m humbled by your humanity Steve, while you put pieces back together after the fires.
Thinking of you weekly.
Tolis, thanks for checking it out and for the kind comment. I’ve got some other reports I could send you but this is not the place for that. I’ve read Daniel Kahneman’s book and it was a great read. I do think it has helped me look at things in a new way.
I did a quick look at the other book you recommended “The Energy Paradox” is written by a medical doctor. I’ve found that, all the books I’ve looked at that were written by MDs, tend to stay within their discipline as it relates to the physicality of humans. Because of that they seem to me to be somewhat hobbled in as much as they can’t talk about the mysteries of the sort that I’m writing about. My subject matter deals with the human mind which is ethereal not physical. Dr. Gundry is into nutrition and it’s benefits which I can’t disagree with at all. I’ve been using quality supplements for over a decade and (although it’s purely anecdotal) I believe its been a factor in helping me beat a cancer incident not long ago.
Great to have this conversation with you. Stay well. Keep banging on those keys!
This post is perfect for fans of retro fun! Home L Hypackel
Finally figured out today’s mystery artist—thanks to this! Today’s Soundmap Artist Guesser