Tag Archives: Start with Why

Nov 13 2012
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Hanging Chad: The Life, Publishing and Writing Forum, Status of the Novel

Hanging Chad Gets Confronted by Gary Vaynerchuck’s CRUSH IT

Simon Sinek saying something compelling.

Look, I’m no Gary Vaynerchuk. No Simon Sinek. No Tony Hsieh. Okay, you can stop me…

I’m just Hanging Chad. I work hard. I count my blessings. I’m a lucky guy with an amazing wife, three stupendous kids, and a pretty cool spot on the north side of Chattanooga.

But still I have a message I’m sending to myself. A message I do believe in. It’s just not always easy to execute. You gotta “find the DNA of your message,” Vaynerchuk says. I totally agree. However our own approach to our message and product ends up translating, there’s something infectious about the way Vanynerchuk works so hard to deliver his message. Should we all think of ourselvses brands? Maybe. What I know I like is that we should all find that little something that we love. It’s what Sinek means when he says it’s about starting with WHY. It’s what Tony Hsieh means with the entire philosophy of creating a culture of happiness.

It’s just gotta be one thing.

After I read or listen to what these guys say, I get pumped. I feel ready to rock the world, to move boldly, to do my one thing well, to live a life out of passion. If it’s out of your passion then you’re already winning. That’s the big overall message from the Vaynerchuks, Sineks, and Hsiehs of the world. I’ll be fulfilled because I’m doing what I love, and working hard at it.

Whatever the case, I like to do lots of things. I suck at accounting–but many things interest me. I can be sold-out passionate for something for a good while, but over time I want a new project. So, guys like Gary Vaynerchuk who are so sold out for their passion are infectious. I want to go and do like them, to be bold, authentic and transparent, tapped into my passion.

I leap off the chair, ready to set up a whole new series of social media contacts and outlets and interactions, and then I stop and go, “But how exactly do I brand myself when I don’t always know who I am?”

Tony Hsieh

That’s right, you heard it right here, some 40 years after the day of my birth. I don’t always know who I am. One day I’m a community organizer, going around and setting up readings, and drafting grant proposals for festivals, and contacting public relations firms. Another I’m a start-up publisher reading manuscripts and trying to respond to each one individually, setting up ISBN numbers, PR templates, author profiles, and distribution agreements. Another I’m a novelist hunkered down in front of my screen drafting pages in solitude.

The paradox is that while I need to embrace the person I am–shaped by personality, experience, and context–I also feel freest to move forward when I embrace the collective identity of what I feel best about when I’m doing it. Wait. What does that even mean?

I sense that I’m in need of saying yes to one very important passion a little more. My own writing.

I look at the inchoate mess that is otherwise known as Simon Krimple’s Wager, my latest unpublished novel. I’m taking a deep breath. I’m squinting at my notes from months back. I’m eating the elephant one bite at a time.

Patience is not my best virtue. Although you might not know it for how slow I am.

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Mar 30 2012
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Community

Start with Why: A Great Idea Applied to C&R Press

Ryan Van Cleave and I founded C&R Press in late 2006, which brings up to a little over five full years of operation. We had more good ideas than we could possibly generate–and far more energy and expertise than funds–and while we’ve built a solid base of support and backlist of books and authors we’re proud of, we still haven’t approximated the tipping point we still strive for.

Fundraising has been our biggest challenge. As the press has grown, it’s been all we can do to manage the production of our titles and keep things moving for our authors. We’ve literally not once taken advantage of our 501(c)3 nonprofit status in order to write a grant. Neither have we put together a fundraiser, or even initiated a pledge drive. Somehow, we’ve survived from the modest sales of many of our authors, and a few generous donations. A little over a month ago, however, at the AWP National Writers’ Conference in Chicago, we began to reaffirm our belief and commitment that our press (that began “ex nihilo”) can still fulfill the mission and vision that we originally conceived several years ago.

There is far too much going on behind the scenes for C&R right now for any single post, but one thing that sent us spinning into overdrive when we came back from our exhilarating conference was the need to more clearly define who we already are. We met with Christa Payne, the Director of Development and External Relations for the Public Education Foundation, an expert in fundraising. Among other things, we asked:

Why can’t we, as a nonprofit literary press, have a fundraiser? And what’s keeping us from writing and landing local, regional and national grants?

So many grants have such specific guidelines that it’s easy to lose the forest for the trees. For instance, while community development and enhancing the arts is a great intersection between what a grant seeks to fund and what we CAN do, above and beyond we need operational funds to sign and promote the many wonderful authors that come our way, to be solvent. We believe in literature as a transformative and crucial cultural dimension of human experience in and of itself, not necessarily tied to other nonprofit campaigns. How do we communicate that, and how do we find others to join our cause?

The long and short of it is this: Our conversation with Christa and others over the past several weeks led us to confirming a stronger case of not only who we are, or what we do, but most importantly, why we are. When I saw this Ted Talk, it hit me that everything we already are is not being stated clearly enough. Ryan and I went to work. The results can be found on our website. We’re still “in process” on some our aesthetics and design, but the statements are there now. Why (we are), How (we do it), and What (we do).

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