Given what I was moaning about in this weekend’s diary comic, the timing is funny.

Strategic Coach has a best-selling book right now called Who Not How, which says that if you want to grow beyond a certain point, the question to ask is not how you’re going to do it, but who can provide the capabilities you’re missing.

I’m sure that’s totally appropriate here, too, but I don’t know who the who is, what exactly I’d be asking them to do, or what’s in it for them. An agent? Fans? How does one connect with these people? I have no skill at that.

Of course, I’m just talking about my personal work here. Thousands of people see my work-work in the Coach’s books every quarter, and I discovered when searching for the link above that the book’s website features a giveaway which includes one of our quarterly books containing my illustrations, so that’s potentially thousands more people seeing my work there. It’s all pretty mind-blowing.

And my boss/my partner on these books, Dan Sullivan has certainly been an amazing “who” — taking something I did for fun and for free and turning it into something I could do for a living. “You mean we just have big conversations about big ideas, you tell me what you’re picturing, and I draw that? For a job? Okay!” Plus he started off this project by asking me if I was interested in drawing 100 books over the next 25 years. I laughed and said, “Sure,” ‘cuz it sounded so made-up, but here we are, 26 books in already!

But, you know, the art thing. We’re always comparing, always wondering if there’s more.

Oh yeah, another thing about That Summer in Paris: Imagine just getting to hang out on a terrace in Paris? Having your friends and cultural heroes all walk past, and maybe even stop to join you at your table? And you just talk into the night.

Meanwhile, you’re also somehow completing ground-breaking novels and stories and essays.

Both Callaghan and Hemingway elide the bits where they do the work, scribbling or typing at a desk for hours and hours and hours. Plus they have Max Perkins writing them letters and calling them up: “Please write something for me to publish!”

Imagine.

~

In other news, happy birthday Dad. I was thinking of you on Thursday. I don’t suppose you look at the internet any more now than you did when you were alive.