June 11, 2026

What have you changed your mind about?

If you guest on a lot of podcasts, you’ll know that a common interview question is:

“What’s something you’ve completely changed your mind about over the years?”

Other than hourly billing going from reasonable to nuts in my mind, I typically have a hard time answering this question.

But recently, an example smacked me in the face that I want to remember for future reference.

And it’s about book titles.

I used to think that when you wanted to write a book, you should first come up with a killer title and then write whatever book you needed to to keep the promise implied by the title.

At times, I have even warned new authors to “Never change the title once you start writing the book, no matter what! Otherwise the thing will spiral out of control!”

But, yeah...

Older me now completely disagrees with younger me.

I do still think you need to have a crystal clear vision for the book to keep it from spiraling out of control.

But I now recognize that a brief and TOC are much more effective for that purpose.

The title can come much later.

Yours,

—J

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