Free The Animal

I've been less than prolific lately as most time for the blog was spent trying to come to a decision about the business aspect, which I was calling "World Paleo Domination" for fun, and I kicked off here and here.

Something you may not know about me: I believe strongly in the power of procrastination. I even used to have a presentation to that effect -- "The Virtue of Procrastination -- which I gave a couple of times at industry conferences. At the same time, I'm rather "Type A" in personality. What it comes down to is that if I do something really quick and ferociously, it's going to be with little investment of time, money, effort. It goes to the throw lots of shit against the wall and see what sticks.

But something that takes a lot of time and effort gets procrastinated (for thinking time), and usually to the extent that at the end, it in no way resembles my original vision. Is that good or bad? Actually, I don't really know. It's how I tend to roll and I've had a thing or two come together in life. There's another great aspect of procrastination, which is that most of life's dire problems tend to resolve all on their own if you just do nothing. I'm not saying that procrastination is always called for, just that it's better to act because you have very clear reasons for acting and not because you find yourself with an idea and a bromide to obey, only because someone shoved it in your head at some point in the past that you should never procrastinate.

I tend to think that the really big successes in life are mostly a product of all of the above, i.e., lots of low-effort attempts, a few intense efforts -- all of which together should be enough to provide you a decent life -- and the rest is luck. A few catch one at the very right moment in time and it sweeps them away. Note: this is an entirely different message than the "you can be anything you want to be" bromide. That's false; it doesn't reflect reality. And, the hardest working people on Earth are also the poorest. Intensity and/or quantity of work and wealth are probably inversely correlated. Quality and/or intelligence of work and wealth are probably correlated, but I wonder how strongly. I'd speculate that the strongest correlation of all is a positive, undiscouraged, persevering attitude. You've got to be ready and willing when the opportunities come along, while understanding they might not, or you might not recognize them if they do, at the time and place they do. I'm fairly certain that most reasonably competent and productive people could handle super-success if it came their way by chance. But it won't; not for most.

Alright, so that's really not wholly pertinent to this update, but I got to rambling and so there you have it.

In short, a critical aspect of the business plan was to create a paid newsletter subscription that would include a copy of the book when finished -- and some other perks. The newsletter would have essentially been the book, as it progressed along. Write the newsletter, edit into a book as you go along.

This plan suffered a critical shortcoming, however: I don't want to write a newsletter. Frankly, I pretty much hate newsletters and never paid for a single subscription where I ended up reading much of it or renewing. Maybe that's me, but I was just uncomfortable with the whole thing. I'd certainly have been up-front about it being largely the book itself, but then where do I go when the book is done? And aren't free newsletters best for building traffic to a blog? And probably most of all: I either blog something at the moment it catches my interest, or it usually doesn't get blogged at all. I suspect I'd just be chasing at content for a newsletter and once chosen, regret the better bead on something the next day.

Ah, I suppose I could make it work, but now we're back to where I began: I don't want to; at least not now, not like this.

But here's what I do want to do: I want to write the very best book for beginners to the Paleo, Primal, EvFit life way that I can possibly write. A big part of that is to provide both the 1, 2, 3, for those who can't or don't want to do it any other way, but I want most of it to be about Freeing the Animal in you and figuring out this stuff all on your own, for your benefit and so you can teach others in the way of Animal Independence.

One other aspect of this was an eventual opportunity for investment. In actuality, 100 people answered hypothetical question number 8 in the affirmative.

FYI, here's the entire survey for those who wish to take a look (PDF).

In April, total unique visits increased over March by about 1,500, just shy of 40,000 total, even with four fewer postings during the month. My goal for this month will be to break 45,000 visits for the first time.

Now, a final word on the investment. I'm not going to BS anyone and say that the opportunity is almost gone. I do have one person that has already contacted me. I'm not going to want more than about 5 people, total, which means we're going to be talking about something in the $10k area each, or more. Obviously, the sooner I raise money to put with my own money, time & efforts, the sooner the book will be edited and marketed.

So, if any others are serious about it, email me at the address on the about page.

You might also like

1. Idiocracy: The Dirty Side of Evolution
2. World Paleo Domination – Update
3. World Paleo Domination – Part 2
4. World Paleo Domination – Part 1
5. Survey Results

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