Steven Bartlett is an interesting young guy, He’s a self-made, multi-millionaire entrepreneur and host of a highly popular podcast called The Diary of a CEO. Recently, he released a book with the same title, subtitled The 33 Laws of Business and Life.
I just read Bartlett’s book, and I can say it’s no run-of-the-mill motivational, self-help spiel that promotes the law of attraction, manifestation, and unicorn-inflated fairy fluffs. This is an outlier look at what works and what doesn’t work. And there’s good stuff in here for writers.
Here’s the jacket copy:
Steven Bartlett has never been one to follow conventional rules. He’s achieved extraordinary success and emerged as one of the greatest marketing minds of our time by doing things differently. But there is a method to his maverick style.
Between founding and running a global digital marketing agency, investing in over forty companies, creating a hit podcast, and launching a venture fund for minority businesses, Bartlett has learned valuable lessons about success and failure, discovering a set of principles that he uses to guide him on his journey from strength to strength.
In The Diary of a CEO, he presents these thirty-three fundamental laws for the first time. Inspired by his own experience, rooted in psychology and behavioral science, and drawn from the conversations he’s had on his podcast with the world’s most successful entrepreneurs, entertainers, artists, writers, and athletes, these laws will ensure excellence and help you take real steps toward achieving your most daring goals.
From the power of ‘leaning into bizarre behavior’ to learning to ‘out-fail the competition’ to ‘never asking for consensus on creativity’ to ‘making pressure your privilege’ to understanding why ‘you must be an inconsistent leader,’ Bartlett provides counterintuitive and fresh insights to lead you on the path to success.
These laws will stand the test of time and will help anyone master their life and unleash their potential, no matter the field.
There’s a lot to digest in this work. A lot to ponder, and a lot to make you say, “That’s a different way to look at it.” But there’s one law (#27) that hit home for me as a writer.
It’s The Discipline Equation: Death, Time, and Discipline. This law teaches you how to be disciplined in anything you set your mind to through a simple “discipline equation”, and why discipline is the ultimate secret to being successful in any ambition we have. Like writing.
Discipline involves the strict allocation of time—the one resource we all have equally in a day, a month, a year. Bartlett uses an analogy called Time Betting where we’re issued poker chips of time blocks and can bet (gamble) upon the results of how we use them. He does this to make you realize how vitally important, precious, and valuable each chip—each minute and hour of your day—truly is.
Setting aside Bartlett’s figure that the average person spends 3.15 hours per day on their smartphone, he offers an intriguing formula for discipline:
Discipline = Value of Goal + Reward of Pursuit – Cost of Pursuit
Bartlett says that success is not complicated, it’s not magic, and it’s not mystery. Luck, chance, and fortune may give you a wonderful tailwind, but the rest will be a byproduct of how you choose to use your time. Most of it hinges on finding something that captivates us enough to persevere daily and use a goal that resonates profoundly enough to remain steadfast in our pursuit.
Success, especially writing success, is the embodiment of discipline—though it may not be easy, its core principles are beautifully simple.
Kill Zoners — Thoughts?