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Not Sure if You Should Work Independently or With a Team? Do Both.
An important secret to my process as a creator: build a good business from your product. This means developing the ability, infrastructure, and skills to earn money independently from partners, handlers, and other gatekeepers. At his blog, Derek Sivers writes:
Make one plan that depends on nobody else. No record deal. No investors. No lucky break. Your profits may be small but sustainable. Grow your audience. Develop your skills. Build your reputation. You can happily continue this way indefinitely.
Make another plan that uses the music industry. Build your team. Pursue a record deal. Find investors. Increase your odds of a lucky break.
Pursue these two plans simultaneously.
This sounds obvious, but it’s actually the opposite of what happens. For me, in much of my 20s, I experienced a creative block from constantly trying to position myself; finding a prominent co-author, meeting the right agent, working with a traditional publisher. I learned the hard way that it just didn’t work for me. I wasn’t doing the work; I wasn’t writing my books. My strength is in my creative work, not in my schmoozing, so I wasn’t putting my best foot forward.
It reminds me of what Curtis Jackson (better known as recording artist 50 Cent) and Robert…
