Captain’s log, stardate 20180321
Sent by Jonathan Stark on March 21st, 2018
Reader Mike Spanger wrote in to share a story which I hope you’ll find inspirational (shared with permission):
Hey, Jonathan. I wanted to give you a quick thanks. I’ve listened to your stuff for a year or so. I knew I needed to pick a specialization, but I couldn’t settle on anything. Recently, I heard you say something along the lines of “pick your mission” (maybe it was from Business of Authority), and you gave ditching hourly billing as an example for yourself. When I heard that, something clicked, and I realized my “mission” is to convince software engineers to use test driven development. In my mind it’s the most professional way to develop software. I rebranded my website, changed the language, and deleted every post (not that I had that many) that didn’t talk about TDD. I went from “What the hell do I write about?!”, to seeing blog post ideas everywhere. At this point I’m not sure how I’ll leverage this specialization into some type of consulting, but one step at a time. Thanks for all your work. - Mike
There are a number of things that I’d like to call out from Mike’s message:
One of the best parts about being on a mission is that a mission is almost always centered on improving the lives of others. This is a much more persuasive story to tell than what I normally see:
Picking a specialization is one of the best cures for writer’s block that I’ve come across. If you’re not sure what to write on your home page, on your sales pages, on your blog, for your mailing list, on your guest posts, or in your books, etc... pick a specialization and I guarantee that you’ll have more ideas than you would ever have time to write.
K, I’ll shut up there... maybe more about missions tomorrow?
(Thanks to Mike for sharing!)
Yours,
—J