You may have noticed that I’ve been promoting my book a lot lately (please buy it, tweet it, and leave a review! thx!) which for some reason means I adopt a “success is easy!” persona. But wearing this persona is like using the dark side of the force or wearing the One Ring.

So I want to dispel some illusions by talking about why the dark side is unpleasant and why I would never make it to Mordor intact, even if I wanted to.

First thing to admit... I’m not a naturally talented writer or speaker. Any writing or speaking I’ve done that’s any good only got that way by putting way more time and energy into it than anyone would reasonably expect to be required.

Downside: I can’t produce talks and articles quickly or on demand. All of my op-ed and article submissions were rejected even after trying to wrangle something to spec.

If I had to write a book in a year I would’ve failed spectacularly, no matter how hard I tried to produce it. In fact, up until the last couple months, it was still trash. That’s almost 3 whole years of flailing.

I trust the process of flailing upward, as long as there’s enough time to get all the wrong stuff out of the way. But most self-promotion opportunities are way too constrained in time and message. I envy people that seem to have an easier time of this. But maybe they don’t.

I passionately resist the “expert” label because that would imply that I had completed my journey through the dark forest of understanding. I may have found a few good treasures, but I’m still hauling them back and struggling to understand their true value. I still need help.