The Long Climb Down To Success

It's something I hear talked about every now and then in geek and fan circles: the person who made it who looks down on their past.  They deny they wrote fanfic, try to forget their earlier artistic efforts, don't acknowledge their roots.  The complains usually involve the person in question looking down on people who do the very things they did to launch their careers; writing fanfic or for free, the oddball cosplay outfits, the years of grinding out boring web code.

My guess is you're nodding as you hear this.

I'd like to note not only are people who act like this arrogant, I think they're missing the point of doing what you love: it's not climbing up the mountain of success, it's about descending into what you truly love and embracing it.

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Your Greatness Is Your Own

As I've always noted, it's important to have role models.  We need people to look up to, to be like, to remind us of what we can do, and to give us ideas of how to be better than we are.  We're social animals, we humans, and we work well with other people as references.

One of the great things about being a fanboy, fangirl, geek, otaku, etc. is that we usually have a lot of great role models and access to them.  Media fans have the actors, writers, editors, and so on to look up to.  Game fans have the programmers and producers to learn from.  Comic geeks have artists and writers and publishers.  When your geekery and your professional ambitions come together, you find yourself surrounded by people you can – and may want to – be like.

There is one thing you have to keep in mind however: You're never going to be successful like your role models.

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The Lessons of Fandom: Entrepreneurship

You can find previous articles on Customer Service and Business Sense.

If you're a fan, you're probably ambitious in at least some way – you've got fanfic or fanart, leaderboards to rise up in your games, conventions to run.  If you think about it, your fandom goals often take a lot of planning, organizing, achieving, and initiative.

If you're a fan, you've probably been learning a lot about Entrepreneurship.

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