A couple of messages emerge from this video — a talk by “The Book of Awesome” author Neil Pasricha at the TEDx Conference in Toronto, Canada.
Blogs to books
Parsricha’s book (he actually has two “Awesome Things” books out now) emerged from a blog, “1,000 Awesome Things,” he started in June 2008.
We might call this a case of passive entrepreneurship.
He didn’t start his list of “things for which we can be thankful” so he could garner worldwide attention and/or make money.(It was a therapeutic exercise, mostly.)
But because he came at it with honestly (along with an easygoing humor and an uncanny ability to identify everyday things that give us comfort), the blog attracted an exponentially increasing amount of attention (that’s the phrase we used before “viral” became all the rage). One thing led to another, including a book deal.
Pasricha’s is not the only blog to graduate to other media, of course.
Justin Halpern’s “Sh*t My Dad Says” became a book, and then a television series starring William Shatner. Gina Trapani’s popular “Lifehacker” was a natural blog-to-book progression. (Although, the loss of hyperlinks kind of undermined book’s content.) And all those gag books about the awesomeness of Chuck Norris (“When the boogeyman goes to sleep at night, he checks under the bed for Chuck Norris”) started in the blogosphere.
Is there a blog-to-book in you?
The joy of living
Life can suck. Your response to same needn’t suck.
In his 18-minute talk, Pasricha spins some personal stories and then lays out “The Three A’s of Awesome.”
Each point to a philosophy of resilience, focus and joy. No, none of those words starts with “A.”
That’s what the video is for. Watch it.
