To Become A Thriving Artist, Follow The Fabian Strategy
If you’re patient, these five steps lead to success
In the 1990s, I was an ambitious entry-level manager in the hotel business. Eager to advance my career, I sought guidance from an executive who served as an unofficial mentor.
He agreed to share the secret that all other execs knew but never said out loud.
“Here’s the deal,” he said. “Ninety-five percent of the entry-level management staff quits within five years. If you can survive that long, you’ll have a solid career ahead of you. Success here is a war of attrition.”
I didn’t know it at the time, but my manager had advocated for The Fabian strategy.
It’s an approach to military operations traced back to Fabius Maximus — a Roman general tasked with defeating Hannibal during the second punic war. Hannibal, General of the superior equipped Carthaginian army, had scored decisive early wins.
Instead of attacking Hannibal directly in head-on battles, Fabius relied on small skirmishes that disrupted and harassed Hannibal, drawing out the conflict, knowing he had time on his side. The Romans eventually defeated Hannibal in a decisive battle ending the seventeen-year conflict.
The war of attrition style that Fabius employed became known as The Fabian Strategy in military parlance. The hotel exec who advised me twenty-five years ago applied the same concept to job advancement.
Hang on for five years, and you’ll win by attrition.
By year three, exhaustion and disillusion pushed me out of my job and out of the industry. But twenty years later, I applied that strategy successfully to my writing career.
During my first year of writing, I made $38. Now four years later, I’m on pace for well over 100K, and that’s as a side gig.
The strategy sounds simple: succeed merely by surviving, but it’s challenging to execute, especially for artistic endeavors. It requires patience — and lots of it. If you’re ready, these five steps ensure a successful implementation.
1. Commit to your craft forever
The Fabian strategy applied to your craft can be reduced to one sentence. Stay in the game long enough to outlast your competition. When you embark on a new venture, never say, “I’ll give it a shot for 60 days.”
Instead, say, “I’m committing to doing this every day for the rest of my life.”
Don’t fear the indefinite commitment. Here’s what will happen over the ensuing years.
People will quit the race. Their temporary breaks become permanent exiles. Most folks get frustrated at short term struggles because they lack the long term perspective. They’re in a rush to reach their prize because if they don’t, they’ll lose interest.
When you make a lifetime commitment, time becomes your ally.
Sure, the day to day ups and downs will still affect you, but with a decades-long horizon, you’ll recognize them as minor blips rather than emotional traumas.
2. Know your finish line
Two-thousand years after the second punic wars, George Washington, nicknamed The American Fabius by the British, exploited the same war of attrition strategy. The goal was to wear down the British until they lost their will. Along the way, the colonists achieved strategic objectives to keep up their morale.
That’s a strategy we need to follow during our careers.
A lifetime horizon does not imply aimlessness. Even if we embark on a decades-long journey, we need short and longterm targets to keep us motivated and on track.
A mentor once explained it to me like this. “If you don’t know your finish line, eventually, you’ll stop running.”
Your journey may be a marathon, but to keep up your spirit, you need to run a few sprints and notch a few wins along the way. Create long term challenging goals, but also smaller, more manageable objectives to keep you motivated.
3. Stay the course
As useful as Fabius’ war of attrition strategy proved militarily, it resulted in a political disaster. The Roman senate replaced him with a more traditional war minded General. That change in policy, however, played into the hands of the Carthaginians, reversing the tide of the war. From then on, the Roman senate embraced Fabius’s strategy.
As you advance on your journey, you’ll see peers who excel. A few will experience bursts of fame. Envy will result, and you’ll feel an urge to follow their path.
Friends will give you advice — much of it well-meaning. They’ll tell you you’re doing it wrong. Look at those champions over there. They’re killing it.
Pressure will come, either from others or yourself. Course corrections may be necessary but think hard before you commit.
The thing about strategy is that you don’t see day to day results. You see it over time. It’s tempting to change course at the first sign of something better, but that’s often akin to building the foundation of a house, getting frustrated at the lack of progress, and then quitting to start on a new foundation for another home. You keep laying the groundwork but never get to enjoy the completed house.
4. Do one thing each day to improve
Just as Washington’s soldiers became more skilled as the revolution progressed, you too need to improve if you’re going to succeed. Look at any art, and you’ll find stagnant artists who work hard but never grow.
They just bitch and complain that nobody appreciates them. No matter how good you think you are, you can always sharpen your skills.
Avoid the advice, improve by 1% each day. It’s far too vague to be of any use.
Instead, choose one micro-skill to focus on each day. A writer might practice using metaphors or strengthening their transitions. A pianist might practice their fingering. You won’t see significant transformations each day, but the small improvements do add up.
5. Play the game you can win
Fabius played the game of attrition because that was the only war he could win. He knew his strengths and his opponent’s weakness. With that information, he devised his plan — his only winning move.
Know your strength. Cultivate it, and play to it. A writer, for example, cannot compete against Steven King, but they can compete in areas King can’t or won’t.
What are your strengths? What could be your strength if you worked at it? In what areas are you too far behind the competition?
Emerging artists of all types try to succeed by imitating successful people in their field. But to win, you must compile the sum of your life experience, personality, and worldview and let it influence your work. That makes you unique. Nobody can ever beat you in that game.
The Fabian strategy summarized
- Commit to your craft indefinitely. Stay in the game long enough to outlast everyone else.
- Know your finish line. Short and longterm goals keep you motivated.
- Stay the course. Don’t give up at the first sign of trouble or because of disapproval from others.
- Do one thing to improve each day. Never assume you’ve learned enough.
- Play the game you can win. Compete where you have the best chance of succeeding.