I’m borrowing (again) from my entrepreneurship guru, Dan Sullivan. Dan has crystalized the statement that every entrepreneur makes to him or herself, whether she does this consciously or not.

It’s the entrepreneur’s code, the independent businessperson’s declaration of principle:

I will expect no remuneration until I have created value for someone else.

Let me repeat that:

I will expect no remuneration until I have created value for someone else.

We write a book. It’s got to sell. It has to “create value” for the reader. Otherwise, we’re not artists, we’re artistes.

You and I must remember always that art is a transaction. The viewer or reader or gallery-goer brings to the table something precious. Her time. Her attention. She may even actually pay money. In return, you and I must deliver something—an image, a song, a story—worthy of our reader or viewer’s time and attention.

This is not easy. Why are there forty million songs released every year but only six hundred that anybody actually remembers? Because it’s hard!

Why do I cite this Entrepreneur’s Code? I do it to get our feet planted firmly on the ground. So that you and I as musicians and filmmakers and video game designers can operate in the world as it really exists—and not in some “artistic” fantasy.

I will expect no remuneration until I have created value for someone else.