You-Can-Do List

I love serendipity, God's little nudges in my life.  This one came about as I was looking for something to post about today, Wednesday, and I was coming up blank.  Then, I thought of Dan Miller and I remembered how inspirational his books where.  Not only is his work uplifting, it actually inspires me.  In fact, after reading his No More Mondays book I had some out of the box thinking in regards to marketing in the like, back when I wanted to be a freelance nonfiction writer.  But I couldn't find my notes. 

So, I went online to his blog, to see if he had anything that might prompt me there.  And I found this post on excuses.  It worked like a shot of optimism, but still, no go on the post.  Back to the book.

I was flipping through it, looking for an index, and found in the back a recommendation list.  On this was a book whose name sounded familiar.  Lo and behold, in my 61 Mile Yard Sale Finds pile, I found it, The Magic of Thinking Big by David J. Schwartz, Ph.D.

Flipping through Thinking Big, I found a cute chapter entitled "Vaccinate Yourself Against Excusitis, the Failure Disease."  And as I began to take notes on it, I discovered I suffered from it.  Pretty badly.  Then I read this:

"Had I been drilled a little more in why a small business can succeed, I'd be better off in every way today." (Schwartz 35)

This is me to a tee.  I'm a born-again optimist, but it is a struggle to get out of the swamp of negativity I surround myself in.  But that passage really struck home.  Why?

Because I rephrased it as:

Focus on why something can succeed, not why something can't.

Then I thought to myself, I know why I can't succeed as a self-published writer, but what about the reasons why I can?

And when I first asked that, I drew a blank.  It was so easy to come up with reasons why it wouldn't work, not so easy to come up reasons why it can work.  Like the book says, I'm using my intelligence in the wrong way. 

So, I asked myself again, and I came up with a tentative list.  It's a start, but sometimes that is all you need.

So, what about you?  What are the reasons why you can self-publish?

Cites:  Schwartz, David J. The Magic of Thinking Big. 1959. New York: Fireside, 1987. Print.