Simple is better. 

I almost went for the gag there, leaving that line as the entire post. But I'm an explainer and storyteller by nature, so I want to elaborate. Because simple is better in pretty much every endeavor you can think of, but the definition of "simple" changes with context.

I have two careers (to put it in simple terms). On the one hand I'm an author, doing my best to put my work in front of as many appreciative people as possible. It's a tough career, if I think about it terms of the time I have to invest to not only write the books but edit them, get them through layout, get a cover pulled together that entices people to pick up the book, market it, market it, market it, repeat. Keeping up with social media posts and blog posts and sales metrics and all the rigamarole of treating authorship as a business — that's exhausting on the whole, if I let myself sink into that mire of detail. But the simple truth is this: I love being an author, and I write books because I love to tell stories. 

I'm also a marketing professional. And that can be quite a jungle to navigate, with a tsunami of data to wade through and consider, with stacks of deliverables, with an ongoing onslaught of content to generate and propagate and curate. There are metrics a-plenty, buyer personas to consider, buying trends and industry trends to analyze, and a ridiculous amount of dealing with the personalities and sensibilities of other humans. The simple truth for marketing: People are the most important factor, and that makes this a business of meeting needs and creating happiness.

Trouble comes, in both of those careers, when I forget to keep it simple. I love the craft of book making, from writing to layout to putting it in the hands of a reader. I love the craft of marketing, from discovering a need to crafting a message to delivering a product to a customer. Life goes pretty smoothly, and everything works very well, when I keep those two simple truths in mind. When I don't, things get chaotic and hectic and stressful.

Simple is better.