Jon Acuff's Blog

There’s a bed they sell that let’s you set a “sleep number.” You get to determine the stiffness or softness you want with a dial and then enjoy a restful night of customized comfort. I forget the name of the manufacturer, but if they want to sponsor my blog, I would Google that on the quick and write it in bold. (The kids need new shoes! Keens specifically, because wow, those things stink after a season of backyard romping.)

The commercials they run about this bed have people talking about their “sleep number.” I think it’s an interesting concept, but what’s even more fascinating to me is that most people have a “success number.”

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Writing a book is simple.

All you do is take a road trip to your soul and document the journey along the way for people who might need to take a road trip to their soul too.

The two sentences above are how I originally wrote this post. Then I talked with my wife about the book I was writing and she said, “Good grief. You’re writing this book like a dog pulling a sled. You’re dragging this important book behind you. You need to write this book like a dog jumping into a pool. Have fun! Otherwise, you’re going to end up with a really miserable book.”

She was right.

If you’re going to write a book or start a business or go back to school, make sure you have fun. The world has enough dogs pulling miserable sleds. Be a dog that jumps in the pool.

How do you write a blog that is unique to you? How do you design a product that is unique to your company? How do you create anything that is unique to who you are and what you do?

Here in a 90 second video I explain the thumb test, something I learned working in advertising. (What I don’t explain is how to not have the opening frame look incredibly goofy. Look at my crazy half smile. Ridiculous.) Big shout out to Patrick Tohill for putting together the video!

Question:
If you put your thumb over your last blog post, book idea or project, would it pass the thumb test?

Right now, I’m in the beginning stages of writing my fourth book. And though I’ve learned the lesson I am going to share with you a million times, it hit me last week as if I’d never seen it before in my entire life.

The hardest part of writing a book is that every good book hides behind a bad book.

To write a good book, you have to write your way through a bad book first.

Scratch that. Let’s make that a horrible book.

And you know this is true. We’ve heard brilliant authors like Anne Lamott share this wisdom time and time again, but I promise when you sit down to start a new book you will think:

“Every sentence must be perfect.”

“I can’t waste time on this first draft.”

“I can’t throw away any of these words, they have to start great.”

But the truth is, for me and for you and for anyone who will ever write a good book, they are very easy to find.

They’re hiding behind the shadow of a bad book.

That’s where they are. Write your way through them. Go find them. Clear the bad book out of the way so you can get to the good one.

Question:
Have you ever struggled with perfectionism?

Recently I had breakfast with a young writer, and he asked me a question:

“How do I find my writing voice?”

My answer was simple:

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For years, I’ve been carrying around a secret list in my head.

For decades, this list has been banging around in my heart causing all manner of chaos and shenanigans.

For, centuries … well I haven’t been alive for centuries but if I had that would have been a pretty dramatic third sentence.

What list am I talking about?

The “Doesn’t Count List” or DCL.

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Kurt Vonnegut is one of my favorite writers. He’s written a ridiculous amount of brilliant books and in this short video explains the shape of stories. If you’ve got 5 minutes today, watch this. Whether you ever want to write or not, this is a perfect example of how to communicate an idea. (Heads up, there’s one profanity.)

Every successful idea goes through three different stages. The first stage is “Imagine,” and is the topic of this quick video I did. This was taken from a speech I gave to Alabama Power employees.

I’ll cover the other two stages, and Imagine in a lot more detail, at the Quitter Conference in a few weeks.

In the meantime, take a look at the clip!

Question:
As you work on your FinishYear goals, are you setting enough time aside for thinking?

Larry David feels just like me and you when it comes to criticism.

You’d think he wouldn’t. He co-created Seinfeld, the most successful sitcom of all-time. His current show Curb Your Enthusiasm is a smash success. He’s on the cover of this month’s Rolling Stone magazine. And yet, he still does the same math you and I do when it comes to critics.

What’s critic’s math?

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Last week, we had an influential musician over to our house for dinner. We’d never met before, but had bumped into each other on Twitter a few times and have a lot of mutual friends.

After he went home and my wife and I were getting ready to go to bed, I wrote a tweet that said, “Great day with @__________, an artist who inspires me to be a better me.”

Then I asked myself a three letter word that has the power to radically improve every blog and tweet you ever write:

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