This post is thought provoking, and more than a bit depressing:

I went to the mall and a little girl called me a terrorist

While, you should read the whole thing, the key part is this:

It didn’t matter that I was a nice person.  All that mattered was that I looked different.

Yes. All that matters is the look. That’s what makes the instant first impression, and that’s what colours all our judgements.

To take a far more trivial example: during my publishing days, the company I worked for published a series of books that were quite truly terrible. The content was basic at best, inaccurate at worst, and read like it had been translated from Korean to English by someone who didn’t speak either.

But they had one thing in their favour: they were VERY pretty.

Good reviews flooded in. People instantly liked the books because they were pretty. Once that happened, it made no difference that the content was trash.

Back to Ela’s post – people are ALWAYS going to make snap judgements the instant they see a hijab, just like they’re going to make snap judgements the instant they see a bespoke suit, robe, man in a skirt, leather jacket or hipster glasses.

What we CAN do is influence the judgements made. People will stop judging a hijab to mean ‘terrorist’ just as soon as people stop seeing muslim and terrorist as synonyms.

I don’t know how to do that. If I did, I’d be running the UN, not writing a marketing blog. All I can do for now is say looks matter. Pay attention to them.

“Life’s too short to stuff a mushroom.”
- Shirley Conran

I have to disagree.

And yes, there’s a business Aesop at the end of all this. But for now, mushrooms.

Now, I am an enthusiastic if untalented chef. Eating good food is one of life’s great pleasures, and I like to create interesting meals.

Last Friday, I tried recreating something I’d eaten in Cornwall, and it was pretty successful. Here’s how it goes (serves 2):

Take 4 portobello mushrooms, the really big meaty ones. Chop off the stalks.

Brush a baking tray with oil, heat the oven to 200C (everything cooks at 200) and pop them in for 10-15 minutes.

While they’re baking, grate some good strong blue cheese. If you don’t like blue cheese, then use good strong not-blue cheese.

Make some breadcrumbs by whizzing a slice of bread in a food processor. Chop up some sun-dried tomatoes and mix with the breadcrumbs.

After 10-15 minutes, take the mushrooms out and fill them with piles of the grated cheese. Really let it pile up. Put them back in the oven for 5 minutes. The cheese should be melty. Now cover each with the breadcrumb-tomato mixture.

Put it back in the oven for another 5 minutes. When they come out, the mushrooms should be fully cooked and the breadcrumbs crispy.

I served it with a ratatouille, because that’s what I had stuff for in the fridge.

It was delicious, and remarkably easy to do. You should totally try cooking it.

And while I was cooking it, here’s the number of times I thought about marketing: 0.

If you’ve got your own business, you know how much it can take over your life. And that’s natural. Every entrepreneur I’ve met is the same. After all, this is your livelihood. If you weren’t hardwired to do your best to improve, you wouldn’t last in this world very long.

But that said, every mind needs a break. It lets you ignore things like invoices and customers and marketing plans, and when you come back to them, you come back refreshed, ready to take on the world and win. For me, it’s cooking. Time spent cooking is time I don’t feel guilty about not spending on work (after all, we all need to eat). For you, it might be something else. But it should be something.

Your business is important. But every now and then, it’s worth taking the time to stuff a mushroom.

I’m REALLY good at it.

I can put things off for days, weeks or years. You name it, I won’t have done it.

Strangely, this doesn’t apply to professional things. I’ve yet to miss a sales letter deadline. Copy is cranked out to a pretty rigid schedule: I work on it in the mornings, when my writing brain is best, and leave the afternoon for smaller tasks.

Personal things: sorting out my investments, sewing a button back on to a shirt, fixing a broken door handle… for some reason I am incapable of setting a schedule and sticking to it the way I do for copywriting.

I even get why.

Professional things have an external motivation. People are relying on me to deliver, so by Mary Hellfire I will deliver. If my bedroom door handle isn’t fixed, the only person put out is me.

I’m not the only one like this.

It can be particularly bad for entrepreneurs who are just starting out, and even those who are more well established. You KNOW you should get that web page marked up, finish off that product… but if the only person who cares right now is you, it’s very easy to put off.

One way around this is to do things publicly… if you’ve committed to a launch date with some affiliates, you’ll be far more motivated to get everything finished on time.

I’ve yet to find out how to set serious external motivation for personal tasks, but I’d love any suggestions.

In the meantime, here’s an article to read in lieu of actually doing work

Thank you, Tyler Cowen

I can see it breaking a lot of people, but being forced to think like this is definitely no bad thing, and something the education system could do with a lot more of.

That doesn’t mean I can’t admit I’m wrong… just that I don’t like doing it.

You can relate, I’m sure.

But we – and by we I mean all of us who always know best – need to remember there’s absolutely no shame in getting something wrong, realising we got something wrong and making a U-turn.

This can be hard to do, because we all love to be consistent. Consistent in how we see ourselves, and consistent in how we see other people.

That’s why politicians make a point of never changing their minds (even when it’s become clear their policies are utterly batshit) – because we’d hate them if they did.

Never mind the fact that we all know it was never a good idea in the first place. They’re flip-floppers. No backbone.

But it’s really important we’re capable of admitting when we’ve got something wrong, and that it’s time to do something new, in any area of life. I could witter about profit and throwing good money after bad here, but really this is true for anything: love, money, or pleasure.

Something you can do (and something I’ve been doing recently, though I forget where I got the idea) is try to remember, every morning, one thing you’ve been wrong about.

Write it down.

And don’t be ashamed when you build a long list. It only becomes foolish when you make the same mistake twice (though I’ve done that too, many times).

Having a record helps you not mind so much when you realise there’s another item to add to it.

That’s my first thought for the day.

Here’s the second:

If we have data, let’s look at data. If all we have are opinions, let’s go with mine.

– Jim Barksdale, former Netscape CEO

Clearly I try to live by that one too.

Right now, I’m shelling broad beans. (Actually, I’m clearly procrastinating because shelling broad beans is boring.) These will become part of a broad bean pilau which I’ll serve with spiced grilled courgettes. It’s vegetarian; not because we are but because cooking satisfying vegetarian meals is far more of a challenge, and therefore far more interesting, than serving a slab of meat. It won’t be vegan, because there are limits to what I consider right and proper.

Before I was shelling broad beans, I went to the Heatherwick exhibition at the Victoria and Albert.

Thomas Heatherwick takes a unique approach to design, and it’s one I’m quite fond of. His studio looks at production processes and finds applications for them in new areas, resulting in amazing furniture like these chairs, based on a process used for metal turning (though inspiration could equally have come from a potter’s wheel).

Or the bridge at Paddington Basin that folds up like a caterpillar.

It’s a reminder to all of us to look outside our own field. It’s important to keep up with what your peers are doing, but sometimes the bit of inspiration is going to come from somewhere outside.

Probably the most famous example of this is Google… while Yahoo and AltaVista were all using a directory-based search model, the Google boys looked outside their field, at academic journal citations.

And, well, we all know how that turned out.

One easy example for the V&A, if you’re reading…

The queue to get tickets for that exhibition was easily half an hour long. And I happen to know you have a membership program where someone can pay £60ish pounds and walk up to any exhibition whenever they feel like it, and walk in for free.

The absolute perfect time to try and sell that to me is when I’ve just been in a queue for half an hour, and when you can tell me that buying the membership will also get me in to the exhibition I was about to pay for anyway, but the guy on the ticket desk didn’t even try.

Actually, that’s a bit of a lie… the BEST time to try and sell it to me would be when I’ve just joined the queue that is about to take half an hour.

If you can get your ticket desk staff to ask people buying a ticket if they’re interested in a membership, you’ll make a lot more sales of it and get a lot more money. All these new members are also more likely to come to the museum more, see more of your collection and spend more time in your gift shop. And in times when government funding’s looking doubtful, that’s good for everyone.

Just think of it as the equivalent of saying “Would you like fries with that?”

No need to thank me. But if you could ask Thomas Heatherwick to come up with a new way of shelling broad beans, I’d appreciate it.

Some of that makes sense. When I write a story, I should have a vague idea of who the characters are and what motivates them. When I write copy, I should know enough about the market and product to know why it’s going to appeal.

But it can go too far.

There’s always the temptation to keep gathering information, keep doing preparation. It can be fun, and it feels like you’re doing stuff.

You’re not doing stuff. Knowing the lay of the land is useful. Beyond that, you’re just procrastinating.

You won’t get better at anything if at some point you don’t stop thinking and start doing.

And once you’ve cleared that hurdle, you won’t get any better if you don’t keep doing it.

I’m good at writing. But I don’t have any special talent to thank for that. I’m good because I’ve been writing since I was four years old. Practice, practice, and practice again.

And that’s what this blog is for. I’m glad you’re reading. I hope you get some value here.

But mostly, this is for me. Because the more I write, the better I get.