The Outstanding Power of Oversimplified Advice

What to do when you learn the truth… but not the whole truth

New York Times Bestselling author Jon Acuff recently revealed the exact dollar amount on his latest royalty check.

It was the thumbnail that baited me into actually watching the whole video. Dangling dollars in front of an audience works. “No way will he show us how much money is on that check,” I thought.

After a while, he did fulfill his promise and showed us the check.

I hope you are sitting down for this.

It was $77.41.

No, you aren’t doing your math wrong. That is exactly one pittance.

Jon went on to explain why he would bother writing in the first place for that small a reward. He used it as a prop to answer a question he is asked often — “can you really make a living as a writer?” Jon said that despite his tiny royalties he could make a living as an author.

“Can you make a living as a author or a painter or a photographer or a cobbler or a chef?” he said. “You can. It comes down to two simple steps.”

The simple steps are as follows:

• Find something you love so much you’d do it for free.
• Get so good at it that people pay you lots of money for it.

10 years ago, I would have swallowed this advice wholesale. Yesterday, at 30, a voice piped up in the back of my head:

“It isn’t that simple.”

I put on my Pointless Detective Hat, the one I always wear when I go on Internet hunts, and quickly discovered that even though Jon is an incredible writer and a wonderful voice in the publishing world, his writing alone isn’t paying the bills. His speaking is.

Jon’s minimum fee is listed at $25,000 online. He’s more a speaker than a writer. So he didn’t really “get so good at writing” that he suddenly raked in more royalties than the entire writer world. He started speaking.

Does that mean his two-step advice to career success is wrong?

Oversimplifications. Without knowing it, you are bombarded with the stuff:

“Find work you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.” —Confucius

“When you want to succeed as bad as you want to breathe, then you’ll be successful.” — Eric Thomas

“Making great movies is really about cultivating a sense of childlike wonder in yourself.” — Steven Spielberg

Well… sure. But Spielberg childlike wonder is supplemented by extensive practical knowledge of lenses and storytelling mechanics. And Eric Thomas’s relentless success speeches are augmented by weeks of client conversations, writing, research, and rehearsal. Confucius… well, who knows about that guy?

Brands get in on this too, of course.

“Just do it!” says Nike, showing a picture of Michael Jordan soaring toward the rim dunk from the free throw line. By “it,” in this scenario, Nike seems to mean means grow 6 feet 6 inches, ignore contract issues of friends and teammates, and have a coach who knows you are the person who should always have the ball.

Aphorisms like these are the reason the self help industry, demonized as it may be, is worth $10 billion dollars.

The question is simple: are we all being lied to?

I used to think so. Sometimes — when I feel crabby enough to pick apart the points of authors I adore — I still do. It’s certainly easy to assume behind every pithy half truth is a crook looking for your money.

Another, healthier choice is to think like Joey Korenman does.

Joey runs an online learning platform, teaching animation from his decades of experience in the industry. On his School of Motion podcast here’s what he said about the subject:

“Naivety is a necessary thing when you start any new endeavor. Without it, you’d never start.”

This reminds me of a famous line spewed from a furious character:

“YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH!”

Largely, it’s true. We can’t.

If Acuff had pointed out that in order to write for a living you probably also need to speak regularly, sell merchandise, become a marketing expert, and master social media, you’d be scared away.

You don’t need to know every step all at once because you can’t take more than one step at a time. As a matter of fact, trying to learn them all might do more harm than good. You don’t need to pick apart every oversimplification. You don’t need more skepticism.

What you do need is Spielburg’s wonder, Thomas’s grit, Nike’s heart, Acuff’s encouragement, and Korrenman’s naivety.

These things aren’t the whole answer, but they can lead you there.

And that’s not an oversimplification.

That’s the truth.