Passion

Here’s something I find hilarious:

So-called “writers”, “creators”, or worse, “experts” who rely on CrapGPT to tell them 1) who their target audience is 2) what those people like 3) which topics they should write about.

I’m serious.

Explain to me how you can, without bursting into tears laughing, have the nerve to call yourself a writer, a creator, an expert, a leader, or even a marketer for all I care, and aren’t able to, from your own mind, your own experience, your own creativity (which you don’t need as much of as you might think) come up with ANYTHING to say or write about.

No clue what to write about, what to talk about, what to sell, and who to sell it to.

At this point, I’m convinced these types of people require help to get them out of bed as well in the morning. If it weren’t for their mom waking them up every morning, chances are they might not even realize where they are or what they’re supposed to do.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.

And while this focuses on writing, it’s equally applicable to everything else you do from public speaking to music creation and more.

Here goes.

If you write about whatever you’re passionate about, and enjoy whatever it is you’re writing, then chances are whoever reads it will enjoy it as much as you do—if not more.

Vice versa, write stuff that bores you about topics that don’t interest you and whoever reads it will be bored out of their mind as well.

Call it the second law of writingdynamics to make it feel all sciency and shit so you’re more likely to remember it.

Anyway, this begs the question:

How do you “optimize” (I don’t enjoy using this word, but for the lack of a better one, let’s go with this one right now) the enjoyment you have while writing—which you’ll eventually transfer to the reader?

Well, that’s the exact topic of the book I’m currently still working on.

So if you’d like to learn more about that, stay tuned and keep your eyes open for more information about that (which will be sooner than you might expect).

In the meantime, check out Email Valhalla to increase your email writing skills so you can grow you list, sell more products, and build a better relationship with your audience.

Here’s the link: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla

So here’s a question for you.

If you’re anything like me—an avid enjoyer of fantasy—you might have noticed how almost all dwarves in popular media nowadays get portrayed as Scottish.

(Something that’s, as I’ve recently learned, not unique to just dwarves, Vikings often get the same treatment in modern media—just look at How To Train Your Dragon).

But why?

I thought about this just a few days ago when, for both educational and inspirational reasons, I started playing The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt for the first time ever (yes I know, shame on me, should’ve played it already a long time ago).

In the game, you’ll come across many species, including dwarves, which are all portrayed as Scots.

This isn’t the only case, far from it.

At first, you might rightly want to point fingers at Tolkien’s Lord of The Rings—like almost every fantasy trope out there.

Simply watch the films and you’ll confirm that idea.

Except, Dwarves were never mentioned or hinted to be Scottish in Tolkien’s original books. If anything, they appeared to be Jewish more than anything else.

So where do you go looking for historical fantasy influences if not for Tolkien’s works?

That’s right, Gary Gygax’s Dungeons & Dragons.

And you’d be mostly correct.

It so turns out that the Scottish Dwarf can be traced back to early D&D novels. Some sources say Gary Gygax was influenced by yet another work of fiction a few decades before there was any mention of Dungeon & Dragons at all.

But that’s truly the end of our little rabbit hole.

Either way.

If someone mentions Dwarves in today’s day and age, chances are you’ll think of a short, red-headed, somewhat chubby, little fellow, going around, throwing out insults with his Scottish accent while wielding either an axe or a pickaxe in his hand.

Because as everyone knows…

If a dwarf ain’t a blacksmith or a miner, he ain’t no dwarf.

And that’s all because of one man who knew what he wanted to do, was passionate about his work, didn’t let anyone else tell them what he could or couldn’t do, and wouldn’t shut up about it until he was sure everyone knew what he was working on—and even then he’d keep on talking about it day after day, because that’s how much he enjoyed it.

Goes to show you the power of persistently sharing your work and talking about your interests.

As far as that goes nowadays, there’s simply no better way to do so than through daily email.

To learn more about how to go about writing daily emails, click here: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla

And I’m not afraid to say it.

See.

Ever since I was young, I remember loving the Transformer franchise, getting multiple Transformers action figures as Christmas and birthday gifts and whatnot, and when I outgrew those action figures, I ended up spending hours playing Transformer video games.

I eventually outgrew those.

But then I started getting fascinated by film music, at which point I was deeply obsessed with—among others—the original Transformer soundtracks by Steve Jablonsky, and later got fascinated by filmmaking as a whole.

And look, the Transformer movies have many flaws—more than anyone could count.

It also didn’t get better as time went on (Don’t even get me started on the most recent releases).

But you know what? That doesn’t matter at the end of the day.

The franchise doesn’t take itself that seriously. And why should it?

It’s making a world of its own. I have no doubt that when Michael Bay was directing Transformers he said to himself “you know what would look totally sick and make for an entertaining picture?” and then did whatever he had in mind.

Without any fear of being ridiculed, of being parodied, of not making “the perfect picture”, there’s no sliver of doubt about the intention behind the films and their entertaining nature.

And it shows in the earlier films (and some scenes of the later ones as well, although arguably less so).

That’s the difference between the artist and the entrepreneur

A true love for the craft—not just the numbers.

And that, to me, is what it’s all about.

See, I don’t care about building the perfect business, the best-optimized funnel, the most automated systems, none of that. It’s not about that.

It’s about the creative freedom. About doing what you love. Thinking something might be fun and enjoyable to do and simply doing it no matter how ridiculous it might seem, how unoptimized it might be, or even how “the public might not like it”.

Authors end up writing the books they wish would’ve been written, simply because they want to experience the joy of reading that story.

That’s the way one should aim to build their creative business.

And if you’re interested to learn one of the ways—if not the best way—to go about building such business, then you might want to check out Email Valhalla here: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla