4 mins read

Finding Kamiwaza

In The Icarus Deception of course…

I’m a Seth Godin fan, so it shouldn’t be shocking to learn that I joined the Kickstarter campaign quite early.

The book’s out, I’ve had my read, and he’s introduced me to a new word that I love: Kamiwaza…

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The campaign

Godin is good at getting a tribe in motion – and this time with “The Icarus Deception” was no different.

I can’t tell what time of day the announcing blog post went live – but my receipt has a time-stamp of seven thirty five on the morning he announced it. I guess it was an easy decision to make…

Devil in the details

I will admin that I was moments away from calling Godin’s email about the book SPAM!

Why?

Because of the fine print…

I definitely saw “$4” “digital preview edition” and “link to the entire book”. I probably saw “available for 4 days only”.

I’m certain that I figured the regular book would be available when it was published…

So when the digital link did come out, I started reading it. And stopped when it wasn’t available – and waited for information about my regular copy… That never came.

Because the paragraph really ended: “We’ll send you a link to the entire book on a specially formatted website, available to read online only for four days, and then it’s gone.” And it didn’t follow that with “YOU WONT BE ABLE TO READ IT ANY MORE AFTER THAT. YOU’LL HAVE TO BUY A COPY!”

Mostly because I couldn’t grasp that sort of offer – who offers a 4 day read of a book?

So my brain interpreted that to mean a logically reasonable thing – a 4 day preview, and then the book when it’s released

And after the 33rd update about the kickstarter program I finally figured out that no book was coming, reread the offer, and felt like I’d been had…

I pledged to call any further updates SPAM because I thought it was a bit cheesy.

The next update contained an apology of sorts from Seth that people didn’t get to read the book and that the online reading was available again for another four days.

So I didn’t call it spam and finished reading the book;-)

If you need to convince yourself

If you still need to figure out that you should be doing your own art, you really must read “The Icarus Deception”.

Me – I’m already in the boat. I’ve even gone and labeled myself an artist on my LinkedIn profile – but that had been after a long time of already being one but not recognizing it.

I read his work for a gleaming insight here and there.

And he didn’t disappoint with Kamiwaza…

He describes Kamiwaza as a difficult Japanese translation, with the shortest version being “godlike”.

I had a difficult time fact-checking this – but have found it referenced as divine work or superhuman feat, and that is inline with how he portrays it.

I’ve written about that

As I kept seeing the word come up, I’d go “hey – I get that”.

You see I wrote about unleashing your own performance eight years ago – but never had a name for it. If you were to have competence and confidence, and unleashed yourself in the performance of the thing that makes you go ahhh – you have Kamiwaza.

My own writing

And it’s funny – I recalled the exact intent of that article, but not the words.

Re-reading them now is a bit fun.

I think I’d get that concept into fewer words but just as much impact;-)

Because I am letting it go

I’m enjoying the thought of the article and staying a bit tighter around it – and that’s fun.

What do you need to let go of?