We like to think we know how to read. So on occasion we’ll order a book on tape, listen to it, and pretend to understand it. READ THIS is where we get to talk about the books we think are worth paying money for. Get this book now.
It’s fun to revel in success. When you get a chance to revel, all past flubs, moments of luck and bouts of infuriating persistence look like keen foresight. This is how 37signals’ latest manifesto REWORK reads. REWORK is a slick, fast paced mission statement urging YOU to rethink the way you do your life’s work.
It’s a fun read because 37signals is a fantastic company. They’re cool. They’re not afraid to drop the F-bomb on their blog or their book. They run their shit the way they want to run it and they’re mad successful.
REWORK looks, feels, and reads like something by Seth Godin. It contains all the inspiration one can ever need to pick themself up by the ole bootstraps and get to work on something meaningful. The best part about REWORK is not what’s inside the book, but the fact that the reader experience doesn’t end when the book is finished. The fantastic Signal vs. Noise blog contains daily updates of REWORK ideas, tactics, and thoughts in practice.
What REWORK delivers in sound, focused advice, it lacks in solid examples [most likely they're trying to drive traffic to their blog, but come on, I paid for this thing, give me some juice!]. When you make a statement as bold as “Run Your Business Like A Drug Dealer” of “Hire College Dropouts” you better show me how or when you followed your own advice. Better yet, show me someone else that did it too.
This is the difference between a book by 37signals and a book by someone like Seth Godin. Where one points to their own success as the beacon of truth and the ultimate example, the other reaches outside to show concrete examples of people that are living the dream, in thousands of different ways.
When it’s all said and done, I really liked this book. I liked it so much I up and bought it for some random person on Twitter (we like to give stuff away.)
Some fun takeaways:
Clear writing equals clear thinking.
It also equals accountability.
You don’t learn from failure, you learn from success.
This takes the concept of learning from your mistakes and turns it on its head. It’s kind of a glass half-empty/glass half-full brain trick. If you keep telling yourself you learn from failures, then it proves that failure is heavy on your mind. Focus on success and the picture becomes alot clearer. Admittedly, this goes against everything this blog stands for. The Dirty Marmaduke Flute Squad wins by FAILING HARD. We steady failin’ so you don’t have to!
Long term plans are a waste of time
Once a huge opportunity comes along and turns your elaborate plan on its head, you can never recoup the time you wasted creating said plan. So stop worrying about it. Make realistic short term goals and play the rest as it comes.
Sell your byproducts
This piece of advice I find most applicable to musicians and bands. Instead of focusing on making a new product, album, or whatever to sell, try selling the scraps that came out of creating your main product. If you made an album, go sell the instrumentals to a filmmaker.
As always, I urge musicians to stop reading about The Beatles, MTV or any other kind of minutiae that offers sensationalized history and tall tales. Instead, start reading books about who(ever) is winning NOW. Musicians will never tell you how they succeed for two reasons:
a.) They don’t want to admit it, but they have no idea how it happened. (Probably)
b.) If they do know how it happened, they’re keeping the secret to themselves.
Businesses on the other hand love to talk about their successes. And as long as this advice is given out in $12 slices, it’s probably a good idea to immerse yourself in as much as you can.
