You are the map maker

What’s the formula for blog posts that will get the greatest number of retweets? Which new product or service will make you the most money? Do you know?

Your best idea

“The truth is that nobody knows for sure what’s going to work. If they did the J.K. Rowlings of this world wouldn’t get rejected by twelve publishers. There is no cast iron guarantee, no secret formula. There is no map to your success.

“This means that you are the map maker. You are responsible for shaping your journey and creating your own success. I know many inspirational entrepreneurs and creative business owners who have done just that and I wanted you to hear some of their stories.

“So today I’m sharing a beautiful book with you that’s been six months in the making.”
— Bernadette Jiwa

Today sees the release of Bernadette’s ebook You Are The Map Maker.

Contributors

Eric Karjaluoto@karj
Nubby Twiglet@nubbytwiglet
Chris Guillebeau@chrisguillebeau
Me — @DavidAirey
Lee Newham@goodpeopletweet
Mark Bloom@MashCreative
Reese Spykerman@reese
Jessica Hische@jessicahische
Derek Sivers@sivers
Jonathan Woodward@jonwoodward
Blair Thomson@BlairThomson
Lea Woodward@kinetiva
Tara Gentile@taragentile

Article headlines in the ebook include: Why do we compete to be average? Lessons for designers to embrace. How do I get freelance work? All the money you make will never buy back your soul.

You are the map maker

You are the map maker

You are the map maker

You are the map maker

The free ebook is available for download on the You are the map maker website, with design and art direction by Believe in.

80-page softback and hardback books are also available at cost price.

Very well done, Bernadette, Blair (and team). Love it.


Comments

10 responses to “You are the map maker”

  1. Ian Moore Avatar
    Ian Moore

    Hey Buddy,
    Another fantastic blog concept that really helps the newbies like myself get a little direction and grow in belief. To all who read this, Dave Airey is a rare breed of entrepreneur who is generally interested in the success of others. Thank you so much Big Chief.
    x

  2. Jamie Davis Avatar
    Jamie Davis

    This is such a good post David.

    I love inspirational quotes. I started a quotes & thoughts doc years ago and I used to update it on a daily basis, so not to forget any. Admittedly, this was before I discovered other website full of quotes and Bookmarks 😉

    The quotes on the link are all so strong but the two quotes that stand out for me are: “Don’t listen to anyone, listen to everyone.” – Chris Guillebeau. I truly believe that with an open mind, you can learn something from everyone and everything. I wrote a quote myself back in the day to try and sum up that feeling: “A closed minded person could read a hundred books and not learn anything. Whereas an open minded person could read one book and learn everything.”

    The second quote that stood out for me is: “If you want to break the rules you need to learn them first.” Nubby Twiglet. As I’m relatively new to graphic design, I feel this rings true for me. I would love to bring something different to the graphic design world, but I need to understand the craft first. This website is my first port-of-call 🙂 Thanks again David.

  3. Brings back my college days memories 😉
    “All the money you make will never buy back your soul”
    Ah, what a quote..

    Thanks for sharing this, David!

  4. Thanks for sharing this, it looks like there’s some really useful advice in there. I am about to leave full time employment due to redundancy and will be starting out as a freelancer – so this is definitely on my reading list!

  5. We are very happy to be part of this. Thanks to Bernadette and Blair and his team at believe-in. Nubby Twiglets page is an inspiration to us all.

  6. Thanks for sharing this. A good read. Sad, though, how designers seem to routinely ignore the importance of proper spelling and punctuation in creating a piece, as if all that mattered was how it looked.

    Without even looking for typos in Ms. Jiwa’s book, I found “quite” used instead of “quiet,” “ow” instead of “now,” and “illusive” instead of “elusive.” Also, there were at least two instances of “its” with an apostrophe at the end. (There is no such word in the English language.) Finally, in a book on design, I was surprised to find the following bad line break” “hand-l” on one line and “ettering” on the next. These errors bring to mind Mash Creative’s award-winning 2010 calendar (mentioned somewhere on this blog, I believe) on which “forty” was consistently misspelled as “fourty.”

    We designers are communicators, are we not? Allowing verbal mistakes into our finished visual work reflects a carelessness and lack of concern for our audiences.

  7. @Rick As a newspaper copy editor for more than 10 years, I completely agree.

  8. Great food for thought for the weekend. I am going to start redrawing my map after some neglect.

  9. Sounds interesting. Definitely worth a read, at least. Thanks for the share, David!

  10. Wow, very inspirational. I am still hooked on the sentence “Your best idea might be the one people laugh at”. People always laugh at my ideas 😉

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