The number of people you need to ask for permission keeps going down:
1. Go, make something happen.
2. Do work you’re proud of.
3. Treat people with respect.
4. Make big promises and keep them.
5. Ship it out the door.
When in doubt, see #1.

Mark Fraunfelder, a leading voice of the post-industrial age, has a new book out today.

It’s not what you expect, and it provoked quite a few thoughts.

• The book is about the increasing insulation between modern life and the idea of actually making/growing/fixing things. As Mark chronicles his journey into the world of tinkering, I realized that this is a spiritual journey, not merely a hobby. Tweaking, making and building are human acts, ones that are very easy to forget about as we sign up to become cogs in the giant machinery of consumption and production.
• Mark has shepherded the world’s most popular blog for eons. What do we owe him for that? Even if the book is merely good, shouldn’t it sell a million copies, if only as a gratuity? Of course it’s not merely good, it’s foundation-shaking, at least for me.
• Is it any surprise that Publisher’s Weekly didn’t like it? Of course not. The anonymous reviews in this dying trade publication are almost always diametrically opposed to what the book delivers and whether it’s interesting enough for a bookstore to sell. Almost all bestselling books are surprise bestsellers, because it’s the surprise part that makes them bestsellers in the first place.

This book won’t resonate with everyone, but Mark’s honest retelling of his repeated failures to be brilliant at all times made me smile, and his relentless and joyous embrace of actually making things was an inspiration.

If you’re starting out as an entrepreneur or a freelancer or a project manager, the most important choice you’ll make is: what to do? As in the answer to the question, “what do you do?”
Some questions to help you get started:
1. Who are you trying to please?
2. Are you trying to make a living, make a difference, or leave a legacy?
3. How will the world be different when you’ve succeeded?
4. Is it more important to add new customers or to increase your interactions with existing ones?
5. Do you want a team? How big? (I know, that’s two questions)
6. Would you rather have an open-ended project that’s never done, or one where you hit natural end points? (How high is high enough?)
7. Are you prepared to actively sell your stuff, or are you expecting that buyers will walk in the door and ask for it?
8. Which: to invent a category or to be just like Bob/Sue, but better?
9. If you take someone else’s investment, are you prepared to sell out to pay it back?
10. Are you done personally growing, or is this project going to force you to change and develop yourself?
11. Choose: teach and lead and challenge your customers, or do what they ask…
12. How long can you wait before it feels as though you’re succeeding?
13. Is perfect important? (Do you feel the need to fail privately, not in public?)
14. Do you want your customers to know each other (a tribe) or is it better they be anonymous and separate?
15. How close to failure, wipe out and humiliation are you willing to fly? (And while we’re on the topic, how open to criticism are you willing to be?)
16. What does busy look like?
In my experience, people skip all of these questions and ask instead: “What can I do that will be sure to work?” The problem, of course, is that there is no sure, and even worse, that you and I have no agreement at all on what it means for something to work.

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