Is it just me or does it seem like everyone is off their meds this week?
Man we’ve had a ton of crazy stuff, whiners, and many who can’t seem to tie their own shoes. Today, in fact, we had an author who was given only one task: keep your Facebook page updated.
He wrote back and said, “This is confusing, I’m done.” Well, excellent. You get no points or a gold star for even trying. I mean seriously, my mother knows how to update a Facebook page and if she can do it, you know. Put your big boy pants on and start updating.
My tolerance level is somewhat low this week because I’ve been seeing all the D-Day stuff and thinking about the incredible human effort and human spirit that goes into becoming a soldier and fighting in a war, or just defending our country in unknown, unnamed places overseas. I was talking to some friends about this, and we were relating this to WWII, with it being the 70th anniversary of D-Day it sort of seemed to fit. I said, “You know some of these authors are rock stars, they do whatever they have to to succeed, but others, well, others struggle with a simple Facebook update.” You know I get it, it’s a learning curve, it can be hard, but whining does not help the process, in fact, last I checked, it makes it worse.
So how does this relate to D-Day? Well, just that there’s a reason we call them The Greatest Generation. There’s a reason that we revere and regard these men with such huge respect: they were heroes and they never gave up. Now, I get that war and book marketing and entirely different, and I mean no disrespect in combining the two in this blog post, but I think that there are lessons that can be learned from what it means to fight a battle, that can be applied to your life. The first is: some people will hate you, they will shoot at you, they will try to burn down your house and your village but you must keep going. Keep advancing and never give up.
Years ago I worked with an author who had been in WWII and was a paratrooper who parachuted into France during D-Day. Let me tell you, this man never, ever, gave up. He was 88 when he hired me and he promoted every day, all the time. He did events, and talks. He went to classes to learn how to do social media, he even took a class to learn how to update his own website so he wouldn’t have to wait for his grand daughter to do it for him. I was so proud to work with him and, on most days, just sat shaking my head wondering how he did it all. He told me, “People will shoot at you, even in life in peaceful times, bullets fly. You just have to keep moving and pushing ahead.”
Life is its own battle, so is book marketing. Certainly nothing like our military faces every day across the globe, or even remotely close to what these men faced during D-Day – it’s a battle on a much different level but it’s still true that if you just toss your hands up and give in, or whine to a friend about how difficult it is, you’ve not only lost the battle but the war as well.
So who will you be? Will you be the decorated hero that wins the war, saves the village and gets the girl or will you be the guy who trips over his untied shoelaces, falls into the English channel and doesn’t even make it onto the boat? Because if you don’t have what it takes, you should just give up, stop whining and make room for the authors who really do want to succeed.
To all those who served and those who continues to serve, we thank you.
