The easiest way to thrive as an outlier is to avoid being one. At least among your most treasured peers. Surround yourself with people in at least as much of a hurry, at least as inquisitive, at least as focused as you are.

Practice works because practice gives us a chance to relax enough to make smart choices.

Listen to your fear but don't obey it.

If you are deliberately trying to create a future that feels safe, you will willfully ignore the future that is likely.

Don't scale because you think there's a pot of gold over that rainbow. Scale because you're ready and eager to do heroic work, every day, forever.

New fashions (of all sorts) come from unexpected places, not from the arbiters of what's correct.

Instead of working hard to keep their share of a shrinking pie, or working even harder to make sure the industry stays as is, I think the most essential thing legacy book industry players can do is set up independent ventures with great people and little interference and work really hard to put themselves out of business by starting at the bottom, not by reinforcing the top.