— From Hugh MacLeod, in Ignore Everybody.

This book didn’t speak to me quite as much as the first book I read of MacLeod’s, Evil Plans (though Ignore Everybody is actually his first book), but I still found it inspiring. Add this to your list of reading if you’re trying to figure out how to build your career and life on your own terms.

Takeaways:

• Rather than joining the ever-popular movement of “making a living doing what you love,” MacLeod advocates working a day job — and not getting too attached to it — and pursuing your passion on the side. That gives you the financial freedom to enjoy your passion, he says, without feeling pressure to make it into a money-maker. He calls this the Sex & Cash Theory; your passion is the sex that sustains you, and the cash is, well, your cash, since we all need that, too.

• A good reason to ignore everybody: They’re too busy with their own stuff to really care about what you’re doing. Worry about yourself more than you worry about everybody else.

• When you suffer from writer’s block, you shouldn’t be writing. Go out into the world, have some adventures and refill your well. Write when you have something to say.

• A blog helps you circumvent the gatekeepers. Grow a blog.