The 50th Law - 50 Cent [65]
This process can seem rather mysterious. Some people seem to have a knack for creating things that resonate with an audience. They are great artists, politicians with the popular touch, or business people who are endlessly inventive. Sometimes we ourselves produce something that works, but we fail to understand why, and lacking this knowledge, we cannot reproduce our success.
There is an aspect to this phenomenon, however, that is explicable. Anything we create or produce is for a public—large or small, depending on what we do. If we are the type that lives mostly in our heads, imagining what the intended public will like, or not even caring, this spirit is reproduced in the work itself. It is disconnected from the social environment; it is a product of a person who is wrapped up in him- or herself. If, on the other hand, we are deeply connected to the public, if we have a profound sense of their needs and wants, then what we make tends to resonate. We have internalized the way of thinking and feeling of our audience and it shows in the work.
The great Russian writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky had almost two separate parts to his career: in the first, he was a socialist who interacted mostly with other intellectuals. His novels and stories were relatively successful. But then in 1849 he was sentenced to several years of prison and hard labor in Siberia for ostensibly conspiring against the government. There, he suddenly discovered that he hadn’t known the Russian people at all. In prison he was thrown in among the dregs of society. In the small village where he did his hard labor, he finally mingled with the Russian peasantry that dominated the country. Once he was freed, all of these experiences became deeply embedded in his work, and suddenly his novels resonated far beyond intellectual circles. He understood his public, the mass of Russian people, from the inside, and his work became immensely popular.
Understand: you cannot disguise your attitude towards the public. If you feel superior at all, part of some chosen elite, then this seeps out in the work. It is conveyed in the tone and mood. It feels patronizing. If you have little access to the public you are trying to reach but you feel that the ideas in your head cannot fail to be interesting, then it almost inevitably comes across as something too personal, the product of someone who is alienated. In either case, what is really dominating the spirit of your work is fear. To interact closely with the public and get its feedback might mean having to adjust your “brilliant” ideas, your preconceived notions. This might challenge your tidy vision of the world. You might disguise this with a snobbish veneer, but it is the age-old fear of the Other.
We are social creatures who make things in order to communicate and connect with those around us. Your goal must be to break down the distance between you and your audience, the base of your support in life. Some of this distance is mental—it comes from your ego and the need to feel superior. Some of it is physical—the nature of your business tends to shut you off from the public with layers of bureaucracy. In any event, what you are seeking is maximum interaction, allowing you to get a feel for people from the inside. You come to thrive off their feedback and criticism. Operating this way, what you produce will not fail to resonate because it will come from the inside. This deep level of interaction is the source of the most powerful and popular works in culture and business, and a political style that truly connects.
The following are four strategies you can use to bring yourself closer to this ideal.
CRUSH ALL DISTANCE
The French artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec came from one of the oldest aristocratic bloodlines in France, but from early on he felt estranged from his family. Part of this came from his physical handicap—his legs had stopped growing at the age of fourteen, giving him a dwarfish appearance. Part of it came from his sensitive nature. He turned to painting as his only interest in life, and in