Hi, it’s Brilliant.
When I started researching — and then writing — a book about prayer, I followed a simple structure. Seven questions I wanted answers to: What is prayer? Why do it? Does it work? Who or what are we praying to? Is there a right way? How can we make prayer part of a busy life? And what else is good to know?
As an organizing framework, it was supremely useful. It shaped more than forty interviews. It worked — the way many things in our lives work. Habits, beliefs, relationships: they work until they don’t. Or until we outgrow them. (Or reinvent them.)
Because here’s what I eventually saw: I was writing the book for myself — those were my questions. But my readers are busy, and many are wrestling with heavy questions of their own. They didn’t want a curiosity tour of prayer. Cut to the chase, Brilliant. Give me value from page one.
So I restructured. “What are the benefits of prayer?” became Part 1. “What is prayer?” — the logical opener — moved to Part 3.
Then something interesting happened. I’ve now worked with three professional editors on this manuscript — and the last two, unprompted, made the same suggestion: open with “What is prayer?” Put it back. That got my attention. An editor’s whole job is to advocate for the reader, and here they were advising against the very change I’d made to serve the reader.
There’s an old proverb: if one person tells you you’re a horse, ignore them. If two people tell you, give it some thought. If three people tell you you’re a horse — go buy a saddle.
But there’s a well-worn piece of advice among writers that points nearly the opposite way: when people tell you something’s wrong, they’re almost always right. When they tell you exactly how to fix it, they’re almost always wrong.
So which is it? The challenging thing about a choice like this is that there’s no right answer. There’s only what you do.
I’ve long believed the two hardest things in life are these: living in a way that lets you hear the still, small voice inside you offering guidance — and having the courage to follow it when you do.
And there’s a tension folded inside this one, because these editors are help I asked for. That’s its own art: asking for help, accepting it — and knowing when not to accept the “help” you’ve asked for.
Which might be the whole practice, for all of us: hearing that voice, finding the courage to follow it — and, when we ask for help, having the discernment to know when to take it and when to trust ourselves instead.
From the Commonplace Book
“This is how you survive the unsurvivable, this is how you lose that which you cannot bear to lose, this is how you reinvent yourself, overcome your abusers, fulfill your ambitions and meet the love of your life: by following what is true, no matter where it leads you.” — Augusten Burroughs, This Is How
Further Down the Rabbit Hole
Recently I watched The Defiant Ones, the HBO docuseries about the unlikely partnership between producer Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre. What I loved: watching Iovine believe in and support artists across every genre and message — Springsteen, Patti Smith, Tom Petty, Stevie Nicks, U2, N.W.A, Nine Inch Nails, Eminem, Dre.
It’s amazing what we can do when someone believes in us — and what we can do for others when we believe in them — and I came away inspired to continue my own creative work, which is really just another way of saying: keep speaking and sharing your truth.
If any of this landed, hit reply and tell me — I read every one. And if you think it might be worth someone else's time, send it their way.
Wishing you every good thing, Brilliant