I mentioned [in that previous essay] that the Jains believed a reader could test the soul of a book by whether the beginning and end words formed a taut linkage, a summary of the whole book, and literally, a string that when you touched it you would make the sound of the whole book boom out loud and clear. By the Jains' test, Soloing is a success. I start out my journey "solo," all alone, trying to make my way without the influence of a big company. By the end of the book, I have become a soloist. I have reached my goal. The theme of the book is how to go from one definition of solo -- "all alone" -- to the higher definition: "being complete in oneself." I achieved that step, and the reader can feel confident of doing the same.
B&N:
I read Soloing right after I finished Michael Lewis's latest book The New New Thing. So much that Lewis described about [Netscape founder] Jim Clark reminded me of the soloists whom you describe. Particularly in this passage: "The difference with Clark is that he continued to believe in endless possibilities of change, even after he'd experienced its limitations. He was the least happy optimist there ever was. No matter how well Jim Clark did for himself, it was always two in the morning in his heart and he was lying awake."
Does being a soloist to the extreme that Jim Clark is, mean that there is a constant "tortured artist" pain in your life?
HR:
Sure, there's always pain in uprooting yourself from an organization or a profession you've come of age inside of. What characterizes soloists is a sort of restless energy. In this economy, everything is new every day. A soloist puts herself in a situation where she can reap the benefits of what's new. She doesn't need a hierarchy to sign off on every decision. She is the smallest, most nimblest creation in the economic ecology. The reason I left (the publisher) Doubleday was this: I became the person who had the answers, and I hated it at a certain point because I wasn't learning anything. As a soloist, I'm learning something new every day. And people are paying me to do it.
B&N:
While reading SOLOING, I thought of how unfortunate it is that your book's message isn't traditionally taught to college students before they enter the work world.
HR:
I never thought about it that way before, but college teaches us dependency. Then we graduate to dependence on yet another institution. It's like going from one perfect pouch to another, to put it in kind of kangaroo terms. Some of us don't get out of institutions until we die.
B&N:
The text of your new book is interesting, stylistically, because you interweave your own voice with an array of other voices offering some message that applies to the solo experience. (Cleopatra and Jeff Katzenberg are referenced on the same page -- both illustrating classic soloist tactics.) Of all those soloists whom you reference but don't know personally, which of them would you most want to meet and talk to about the solo experience?
HR:
Of course Thoreau. Although I have a feeling he would have been sort of ornery [laughs], and it only would have been a five-minute conversation. Just to spend a day with him and follow him around and understand how somebody could so divorce himself from the security of every institution to the point of growing his own beans and having no contact with anyone. That kind of soloing takes a lot of courage because the loneliness can be one of the most difficult hurdles to face.
B&N:
You make a very clear distinction between brand and identity. Explain that distinction and why it's so important for soloists.
HR:
The simplest way to think about it is to think of a brand as a promise. What promises do you make to the world? My promise to my customers is to help them scout new business ideas and to show them the future as I have a chance to see it. One's identity is the face on that brand. It's everything that you can see -- your stationery, your logo, if you have one -- it's who you are. In the big organization days, an identity never changed. In the new world, especially in the solo world, your identity changes depending upon what you want to do. One day you're a consultant. Another day you wake up with a gig as a speaker because you've got something important to say. Your brand has to be stable, but your identity can and should keep changing. I know soloists who won't print business cards and who won't use a logo because they invent themselves every day.
B&N:
Do you think everyone should be a soloist?
HR:
Everyone who wants to be should have the opportunity. Some people really cherish the security of community and the workplace. There's a real change going on in organizations. The difference between inside and outside isn't so strong anymore. Soloists will be able to go back to a corporation on a long-term project, not as employees but as stubborn individualists. There are enough people who are happy to be where they are. But a whole lot of people are desperate to test themselves, to follow a dream or a passion. So why shouldn't they have a choice and know how to take the chance.
B&N:
Could you expand upon the following passage from Soloing: "I used to divide my work into two categories: What you had to sell your soul to do. What you had to do to spare your soul. You say in the Solo world, unlike the corporate world, Sell it. Flaunt it. Hand it out. You can sell your soul and have it too."
HR:
When I was a book editor, so many people asked me for so many things, and I kept having to give and give and give, and I felt totally dry. Now I find that when I'm working for myself it doesn't matter how many people ask me for things. The more I give away, the more I learn and the more I get back. It's a different kind of economic transfer -- I'm not just giving away because I'm learning. Every time I give somebody an idea, they're teaching me something, too. Ultimately the buck stops with me. I have the responsibility and get all the returns. I may feel exhausted, but I never feel empty.
B&N:
You begin one chapter by describing a conversation in which someone asks you, "What will you do when soloing gets old?" How do you respond to nay sayers who would say things like "This is a fad. This entrepreneurial movement is just the latest business trend"?
HR:
It might be a phase, yet it might be a phase that everybody had to go through. Thoreau went back to work in his father's pencil factory, and he never again wrote anything as important as Walden. That says to me that maybe soloing was the best two years of his life. But the great thing about being a soloist is, even if you go back to an organization, you never go back to it as an employee. You've seen the other side. They can never own you. And that's a big, big difference. They're no longer the representatives of a faceless company. I published 20 books a year, now I have four clients a year, and that's enough. So every interaction with these clients is more intense, personal, and gratifying. The whole context is more intimate, so the gratitude and the satisfaction are much higher. And also as a soloist, I can choose what I really want. And what I care about.
