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Experiments in Publishing

by Jarkko on December 20, 2011 · 2 comments

In 1995, I was fourteen years old, and a magazine publisher. Together with my brothers Lauri and Jetro, we published a monthly magazine Savannin uutisia (News from the Savanna), named after the fact that we lived in Senegal, in the middle of the savanna. The magazine cost 800 FCFA (about 1.5 US dollars in today's exchange rates) and was sold to friends' parents and other Finnish missionaries in Senegal.

At school, we had a PC with Windows 3.1 and an early version of Microsoft Works, so we could type the text and print it out on a matrix printer. After printing the text, we laid out the magazine using glue scissors. Page by page, we cut the text into suitable pieces (in the photo below, you'll see how at times, we even cut the words one by one!) and glued them on sheets of paper. As illustration, we used clip art, photos cut from magazines and our own drawings. When we were done with the layout, we took our master copy to the copying machine at our parents' work place and took a dozen or so copies of the magazine.

The content of the magazine was broad, everything from current events at school and in the small community of Finnish missionaries living in Senegal to jokes and fake ads for everyday products to a beginner programming course. One of our high moments was when we interviewed our teachers who had just had a baby. At that moment, I felt like a real reporter. After five issues, we left Senegal, and the magazine with it. This didn't end my adventures in the world of publishing. I have written tutorials, blog posts and other types of articles on this blog as well as many other web sites. But I never published another magazine. Until now. Here comes the announcement: I am re-launching Insanely Interested as a publisher of very targeted magazines for the insanely interested. I am already working hard on the first magazine, Bread, with the first edition targeted for a February 2012 launch. At Insanely Interested, I also publish a new, email only blog, Creative&Curious. If you are interested to see where my experiments in publishing are taking me next, visit Insanely Interested right now. I'd love to take you on this journey with me!

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Will you regret not doing it?

by Jarkko on December 10, 2011 · 2 comments

Like this time every year, many of us are looking back to the work we did in 2011, asking the big questions once again: How did this year go? Did I spend my time on the things that matter, or was I just going with the flow, keeping up with my routines? Throughout history, smart people have shared their tools for approaching the question. One of my favorites is this one from Derek Sivers. Quoting from his book, Anything You Want:

When you make a business, you get to make a little universe where you control all the laws. This is your utopia.

Or said in another way:

Complete the sentence: "In a perfect world..." Then get to work creating that perfect world.

This is great advice. But there is another idea that has been growing in my mind these past days, which I'd like to share with you. Here's how it goes:

Looking at every possible path (you think) you can take, ask yourself: "If I decide to skip this opportunity, will I regret it when I'm too old to give it a try?"

Most item on that list of good ideas won't create any emotional reaction. Maybe you'll think that it would be a shame to not implement them, but that's your analytical brain speaking. And then there's the one that makes you feel your heart beat. The one that scares you. It's the one that always returns, no matter how many times you bury it. And already now, you regret that you haven't jumped in with both feet and explored it properly. If you regret it now, how much more will you regret when it's too late? That's the path you will have to take. Stay on it until there is no question of whether it will get you anywhere or not. Work hard so you know you gave it your best. This way, in the end, even if things don't work out, there will be no need for regret.

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Be Awesome!

by Jarkko on November 20, 2011 · 0 comments

I had never heard of Danny MacAskill until two nights ago when my brother shared a link to one of his videos on Facebook. I watched that video, then another, and before I realized I had spent an hour watching a guy riding his bike. His skills touched me: it was not just a bunch of tricks on a bike. It was art. If you haven't seen Danny MacAskill before, watch these videos now. You won't regret it. Actually, even if you have seen them before, it's still a good idea to take a few minutes to enjoy them now and remind you of the human potential! I was thinking of writing about how complete dedication to whatever crazy thing you are interested in will make you interesting, or how relentlessly pursuing your burning desire no matter how many people will tell you it's insane will make your life amazing, and how this is a call all of us can answer, even if the craziest trick we can do on a bike is to ride it with one hand. But now, looking at this post, and watching the videos once again, I realize you don't need all those words. All you need is Danny MacAskill, his bike, and some peace for your own thoughts to process what you see and how it all relates to your life. Be awesome!

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Equip Yourself For Fighting Resistance

by Jarkko on May 31, 2011 · 2 comments

It's the voice inside your head that tells you it's time to quit. It's the sudden urge to surf the web and write clever status updates to Facebook. It's the feeling of anxiety that keeps your finished work unpublished. It's the hopelessness that prevents you from changing the world. Its name is Resistance. We need you to fight it. If you have ever created and published something new in your life, you know what I'm talking about. You have felt resistance. You might not have known it by name, but you have felt it at work. And in the worst case, maybe it has succeeded in discouraging you from sharing your art. I have good news: You can get to know it. You can trick it. And in the end, you can create despite its best attempts to stop you.

Start here, start now

This are the tools I keep close as I fight my resistant demons. I hope they can get you going as well:

	The one and only starting point to your journey to beating Resistance is Steven Pressfield's The War Of Art, the book that introduced the concept to the world. The office is closed. How many pages have I produced? I don’t care. Are they any good? I don’t even think about it. All that matters is I’ve put in my time and hit it with all I’ve got. All that counts is that, for this day, for this session, I have overcome Resistance. * * *
	My first introduction to Resistance was through Seth Godin's Linchpin. Linchpin takes Resistance from the world of artists and applies it to all kinds of important work. Or better yet, it says we are all artists now and need to fight resistance to share our gifts with the world. That will make us indispensable. * * *
	Seth Godin's latest brain child, The Domino Project is doing an amazing job at publishing books and manifestos that help us deal with Resistance and get art out there. Check out Pressfield's practical Do the Work, Godin's own Poke the Box, or their latest release, Ralph Waldo Emerson's Self-Reliance for more inspiration than you can digest today. * * *
	If blogging is what you are struggling with, my friend Mark Hayward together with Joaquin Kierce has just released a free motivational e-book that will get you going: The Possibility Engine is a thirty-day coaching program that will get your blog in gear. * * *
	And finally, my own small e-book. Create! (with small children in the house) is based on my own experiences in creating and fighting resistance while living with first one and then two small kids in the household, and the tricks I have used to work my way through some of the obstacles laid by the Resistance. The book is mostly aimed at parents who feel the urge to create but can't seem to find the time, but I have heard it can help others as well, so check it out even if you don't have kids. It's free. * * *

With the help, the next step is yours: take action and make a difference. We are waiting for you.

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Today, Do Something You Have Never Done Before (+ 11 Reasons Why It’s Great for You)

by Jarkko on May 24, 2011 · 3 comments

For the past weeks I have been immersed in a building project I had dreamed about since last summer: I am building a playhouse for my two boys -- on our apartment's balcony. I have no previous building experience but slowly and steadily the small building is getting closer to completion. I am learning as I go, and it feels great! It's in the very same way that I taught myself computer programming as a kid, or baking my own bread in the past two years: jumping in with both feet, and doing something I had never done before. Just like that, without too many preparations. In fact, I think it's the only way to learn something new. So, if you are only doing things you already know how to do, you are leaving some amazing potential for learning unused. If you need more proof, read the rest of this post. Otherwise, go on already and do something you have never done before: pick a guitar and look up the first chords from YouTube, set up a blog and write your first blog post, take a stand and bring some small change to the world. At first, you will not be perfect. As proud as I am about my playhouse, I must admit that it has its faults. Just a glance at it will reveal that it wasn't built by a professional. But I have created something, and that can be a start for a great new passion and a lifelong adventure. So, I give you permission: today, do something you have never done before. If that's not enough to get you started, here is a list of 11 reasons why it's good for you:

It's fun!
You will learn a new skill, and help keep your brain healthy.
You will outdo your expectations. Your creation doesn't have to fill the standards of a professional to be impressive. Breaking your own limits is all that counts.
It will get your creative juices running. Working with completely different tools than you normally do will almost definitely give you completely different ideas.
You will become a superhero. Crossing the borders of your comfort zone and succeeding in something new will give you courage and empower you to try out new ideas more easily in the future.
It will open up new opportunities. Doing what you have done many times before leads to predictable results. To clear room for new possibilities, you need to do something different.
You might become a better person. Picking up a good habit is also most likely doing something you have never done before -- and it could also be something that will change your life for good.
You have the chance to make a difference in someone else's life. Sure, if your everyday actions are already changing the lives of dozens, this doesn't count. For the rest of us, giving our time and energy for a good cause is a great way to do something different.
You will learn to know yourself better. Doing something for the first time puts you in a situation where you don't normally find yourself in. What better way to test your assumptions on the kind of person you are. The way staying at home with my kids has taught me that I am not as cool and patient as I thought.
You can write a blog post about it! I just did.
It's the only way to get to doing it for the second time. If you dream of being great at something, there are no shortcuts: you have to start from doing it for the first time.

Now, go do it -- and don't forget to come back and tell me what you did and how it went!

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The Only Way Out

by Jarkko on May 18, 2011 · 2 comments

Midday in the Kalahari Desert is not quite the time or place for a run. With heat rising from 39 to 45 degrees Celcius (about 113°F), most sane people would take cover from the sun, sitting under the lone tree they can find, drinking water and waiting for the air to cool down. Not !Nam!kabe, !Nate, Kayate, and Boro//xao, or any of the other persistence hunters anthropologist Louis Liebenberg has observed since his first trip to the Lone Tree area in 1985. They hunt: Just like their ancestors, they pick an antelope or a kudu and hunt it down by running after it until it either drops dead, exhausted by the heat, or has to stop for long enough so that the hunters can easily kill it with a spear. This hunt is stunning in many ways: It helps explain the role running may have had in our evolution. It shows the strength of human team work as the hunters work in teams consisting of young and old runners, men, female, not forgetting the children either. But most importantly, it shows something very special about the human nature: our ability for hope. When the runners start their chase, the antelope quickly loses the trackers and it would be easy to dismiss the whole project as impossible. The antelope is so much faster than a human can ever be. But the hunter doesn't let go of hope. He imagines the dinner he will be able to prepare to feed his family, and he remembers from earlier runs that if he trusts in what he is doing, he will be the last one standing, no matter how hard it seems at start. And so he runs.

More than ever, today, we need hope.

One night on Easter week, I was chatting with my brother Jetro -- one of the smartest people I know. What started as a lighthearted discussion about Finnish politics soon proceeded to the heavier waters of the state of the world in general. Starting from the economic crisis, we went through one issue to the next, each of them making us feel further stripped from any power to fix the problems of this world. There's no denying it, this world is in a pretty bad shape. If it was just one issue, let's say climate change, chances would be pretty good. Our governments have solved big problems in the past. But instead of one, there are so many it's hard to keep track: peak oil, poverty, loss of biodiversity, a clean water crisis, all kinds of issues with pollution, a raising level of inequality, a financial crisis that seems to have no end, to name a few. Just listing these words on this page makes me feel so desperate I want to hide and pretend I have never heard of them. But as we talked about these unsurmountable obstacles, I couldn't stop telling myself that there must be something we can do about it. I don't know what it is. But there must be something. That's hope. A fragile, scared kind of hope. But hope nonetheless. For me, being human means clinging to hope and acting accordingly, even if in the end, we might fail. And this time, the odds really are against us. Failure is more than an option, it is the likely outcome. But unless we try to reach the unreachable and to build a sustainable world for our children to live in, we are not being true to our humanity. Right now, more than anything, we need to cultivate hope. By hanging out with people who believe making a difference is possible. By getting down to work and building on top of small victories. By taking initiative and jumping right in. That is our only way out.

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Doing What Counts

Experiments in Publishing

Will you regret not doing it?

Be Awesome!

Equip Yourself For Fighting Resistance

Start here, start now

Today, Do Something You Have Never Done Before (+ 11 Reasons Why It’s Great for You)

The Only Way Out

More than ever, today, we need hope.

24 Words You Should Think About Today

Comments Are Back: Why a Blog Without Comments is Not For Me

Are You Answering The Right Questions?

The Union of Simplicity and Bread