You, Inc., Part Two
The concept of You, Inc. is a direct application of the idea of self-motivation instead of externally-imposed motivation, self-discipline in place of outside discipline, self-reinforcement in the stead of Third Party Validation.
You, Inc. are two persons. You’re the CEO, who directs the operation, who sees the Big Picture, who gives the orders. And you’re the working stiff, the foot soldier who actually does the job.
When we tell ourselves, “I’m getting up at 5:30 every morning and working on my pages for ninety minutes no matter what,” we are enacting self-motivation and self-direction. It’s one self—let’s call her Rosalind, the CEO—telling the other, Rosie the Riveter, what to do.
When we, Rosie, follow Rosalind’s orders, we are enacting self-discipline.
End of day, Rosie opens her locker and finds a nice little bonus check signed by Rosalind, with a hand-written note saying, “The firm appreciates your hard work and your creativity. Thanks and keep up the great work.”
That’s self-reinforcement. That’s self-validation.
That’s the mindset of the artist and the entrepreneur.
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?"
I like this. A writer, an artist, a musician, etc. is lucky if they have one person that asks regularly, “Hey, how’s it going?”
More likely, the artist is the only person who cares if they show up to work. Keep punching that clock.
Das ist gut!
Nice!
Thanks, Steve
Thank you! Never thought about Michael, the CEO, and and Mike, the guy who makes it happen. Time for both of them to get back to work!
This makes me think of the 1996 comedy/sci-fi movie “Multiplicity,” with Michael Keaton and Andie MacDowell. Doug gets cloned. He sends “Clone #1/Lance” off to work Doug’s construction job whilst Doug stays at home, at his leisure.
Me: “You got today’s pages done yet? I’ve got a tee-time at 11:00.”
Cloned Me: “Right at 1,000 words, chief.”
Me: “Fantastic. Meet me at the 19th hole and I’ll buy you a coke. And bring our pages with you.”
A warning about You, Inc:
Be careful not to spread yourself too thin. Did this to myself, and am currently eliminating clients and projects to free up bandwidth. If I told you the list of ongoing things that I have happening each week, you’d think I’m insane, and you’d be correct. The book has been at the top of the priority list for years. That’s not a problem. Its that I have multiple clients that are all totally different businesses I have to understand. And I upped the exercise to 5 days per week. And I began writing Youtube scripts and making videos. Gotta eliminate a day of exercise, and set a hard schedule for YT scripts, filming, editing, and uploading.
This isn’t on topic, but I’d love some help. Steve, you often talk about how much guidance you get from dreams (however you worded it). I’ve found that, as well.
I’ve occasionally had dreams of a plane crash, which had always meant a project nearing completion wouldn’t take off the way I’d hoped. I appreciated the notice.
The other night, after I started the very first page of a brand-new project, I had a plane crash dream. It was as if I was being warned to stop, and I’d barely begun. This didn’t seem like guidance; it felt like Resistance. Satan!
Can Satan hijack your dreams? Serious question.
Steve has said Resistance is strongest, most diabolical when you’re working on something that’s really important, a big thing. With that in mind, I’ve always taken big resistance as a sign “the thing” is something that I really should do.
As a way to decode the dream and get to the meaning it might be pointing to, think of the feeling you had in the dream. Was it that you needed to try harder/put in more effort to avoid the crash? Was it that there was something that you had forgotten or not considered that led to the crash? Etc. Go to the feeling, and that may help you decode with the dream is pointing to from your subconscious.
Interesting suggestion, Chuck. I was looking at the crash, just down the hill from where we live, and thinking, “Interesting.” I wasn’t afraid. I just found it interesting. It didn’t seem to have anything to do with me. Perhaps it’s a nudge to stay detached from the outcome as I work!
Thanks.
The way I see it dear Maureen, is everything is relative. No Satan or such forces, just multiflows in us that have directions and destinations, unmistakenly. If you play with your dream, you can pull out both forces of inspiration or Resistance. Maybe it’s not the dreams at all that matter, but the procedure you put your self under. Shop windows they are, but the shop keeper is you, and has nothing to do with windows – they are just marketing, positive or negative marketing. In a few words… I believe you are a human worth creating, and thus do it with no fear at all, because if the shop keeper is valuable then the product is too.
Thanks, Tolis!
This reminds me of an old Dilbert cartoon, a suggestion to use the stars as your guide. “Does that work?” the pointy-haired boss asks. The answer: “If you believe it works, then you’re not bright enough to make your own decisions anyway.” 🤣
Nice. Using the two mindsets in a complementary, intentional way. I love these pointers.
Thank you so much dear Steve. Now with the shadow work I can’t even find that one hour but in the weekend I finished writting the first of the 5 notebooks’ work at the PC. I knew this would happen, that I would eventually lose almost all time and energy due to shadow work, so this time I ran faster than it and I finished the book before it came (it was inevitable for it to arrive).
So, Rosalind now patiently and eagerly waits Rosie to prepare the mail and mail it to the right people. She is satisfied even from now, because she knows that Rosie did all she could. She wasn’t perfect, ideal, worthy of her inner dynamics, but she was unstoppable even though a turtle. And she reached the terminal line. She did.
Now let’s see not if luck will bring forth a destination, but if it will bring the reached destination to a sacred place or not.
Genial! Suas palavras são sempre bem vindas.
Gratos
Thankful
Brilliant! Yours words are always welcome.
Thankful
This “split personality” approach of You, Inc is also featured in the classic book Inner Tennis by Timothy Gallwey. Both philosophies require you to divide your identity to be successful.
To me, You, Inc. gets you to sit down and do the work, while Inner Tennis dictates how you get into a flow state once the work has begun.
Sounds easy…