Paulo Coelho

It’s a classic folklore story that seems to be present in many different cultures. (Found a Brazilian one: https://paulocoelhoblog.com/2015/09/04/the-fisherman-and-the-businessm… For a classic Western version, see Plutarch’s story: ‘What the favourite of the King of Epirus said to his master may be applied to all men in the ordinary situations of human life. When the king had recounted to him, in their proper order, all the conquests which he proposed to make, and had come to the last of them; “And what does your Majesty propose to do then?” said the Favourite. “I propose then,” said the King, “to enjoy myself with my friends, and endeavour to be good company over a bottle.” “And what hinders your Majesty from doing so now?” replied the Favourite.’

It just makes me think of the story of the fisherman: https://paulocoelhoblog.com/2015/09/04/the-fisherman-and-the-businessm… Your replies seem to indicate that he should spend his time doing "productive" things instead; that would be more "optimal". I guess I'm tired of this race-to-the-bottom mentality where we spend so much time "optimizing" our productivity that we optimize the joy out of life. Productivity is a good thing, but I'm not convinced it is the greatest good.

Author Paolo Coelho operated a blog called Pirate Coelho where he published torrents to all his books. He still does this because it makes him rich. For example, in Russia nobody bought his books, sales were up to 15 000 books in two years. So he leaked the russian translations via BitTorrent. Soon, he saw that people started talking about them. Some time later, he saw the sales increasing. A lot. In one year sales of his physical books crossed 1 million in Russia. Source is himself. Now, his publishers have finally realized the connection, so he doesn't need the anonymous pirate blog anymore. Instead, he links to the torrents from his own offical blog. He is also an avid SOPA protester: http://paulocoelhoblog.com/

From Paulo Coelho's blog: (http://paulocoelhoblog.com/2012/01/20/welcome-to-pirate-my-books/) "...Nowadays, I run a ‘Pirate Coelho’ website, giving links to any books of mine that are available on P2P sites. And my sales continue to grow — nearly 140 million copies world wide..." Chapeau and a great lesson how to do things: One other way: We should stop accepting the labeling of sites with termini that create negative soundings with the Vogons of the Entertainment industry and instead play their game against them by using terminology that they are more familiar with. That will also make some of them actually read critical material. In this case how about "agile communications on literature" or "active user engagement with the content" or maybe "community building beyond consumption" (Sorry for the high levels of nonsense but the best way to beat an overly strong enemy is using their weaknesses and their weapons against them.)

The businessman and the fisherman seems relevant https://paulocoelhoblog.com/2015/09/04/the-fisherman-and-the-businessm…

They do? I don't remember hating my bike when I was a kid, and I had the cheap kind. I also don't remember it being too heavy or anything. Of course if I wanted to ride my bike, I had to lift the heavy wooden garage door up (elementary-school-age). Kids that I volunteer with all seem weak and have issues that I never had. There's a parable about helping a butterfly out of a cocoon: https://paulocoelhoblog.com/2007/12/10/the-lesson-of-the-butterfly/

The full text of the story is on his blog here https://paulocoelhoblog.com/2019/03/30/001/

(2019) (yes I know the tweet is from today, but the story was written in 2019: https://paulocoelhoblog.com/2019/03/30/001/ )

Actually this happens in other country and Coehlo make free version of his own books: https://paulocoelhoblog.com/2008/02/03/pirate-coelho/

Reminds me of the story of the fisherman and businessman. https://paulocoelhoblog.com/2015/09/04/the-fisherman-and-the-businessm…

> What other method is there to get ahead as an individual other than out-competing your peers? There's a parable about this, about a fisherman and a businessman. https://paulocoelhoblog.com/2015/09/04/the-fisherman-and-the-businessm…

Brings to mind "The fisherman and the businessman" http://paulocoelhoblog.com/2015/09/04/the-fisherman-and-the-businessma…

Reminds me of the fishermen story, actually. - http://paulocoelhoblog.com/2015/09/04/the-fisherman-and-the-businessma…

It's true, some people have to dragged into the future. When shopping carts first came about, stores had to hire people to go around the store demonstrating the benefit of using a shopping cart. At the same time, if you've not read the fisherman and the businessman (1 minute read), the ending is relevant to your discussion. http://paulocoelhoblog.com/2015/09/04/the-fisherman-and-the-businessma…

http://paulocoelhoblog.com/2016/04/13/who-deleted-the-song-in-my-profi… This one is from this year :)

This is so valid. Don't wait for some arbitrary monetary goal before you live life exactly how you want to. Money makes some things easier, but also makes a lot of things harder. It will not buy you happiness, it will not buy you meaning and it won't stop your wife from dumping your ass if you don't do your job at home (she'll just take half of your "money" with her on the way out). I always think of this story when I hear this type of question: http://paulocoelhoblog.com/2010/09/08/the-fisherman-and-the-businessma…

Obligatory: http://paulocoelhoblog.com/2010/09/08/the-fisherman-and-the-businessma… Happiness is different things for different people. Don't be condescending if you do not understand another person's way of life.

Relevant fisherman story: http://paulocoelhoblog.com/2010/09/08/the-fisherman-and-the-businessma…

Well, Paulo Coelho pirated his own books to increase revenue. So I would guess that 1,000,000 pirates could mean significantly more than $0. "the physical sales of my books are growing since my readers post them in P2P sites." http://paulocoelhoblog.com/2012/01/28/promo-bay/

There was once a businessman who was sitting by the beach in a small Brazilian village. As he sat, he saw a Brazilian fisherman rowing a small boat towards the shore having caught quite few big fish. The businessman was impressed and asked the fisherman, “How long does it take you to catch so many fish?” The fisherman replied, “Oh, just a short while.” “Then why don’t you stay longer at sea and catch even more?” The businessman was astonished. “This is enough to feed my whole family,” the fisherman said. The businessman then asked, “So, what do you do for the rest of the day?” The fisherman replied, “Well, I usually wake up early in the morning, go out to sea and catch a few fish, then go back and play with my kids. In the afternoon, I take a nap with my wife, and evening comes, I join my buddies in the village for a drink — we play guitar, sing and dance throughout the night.” The businessman offered a suggestion to the fisherman. “I am a PhD in business management. I could help you to become a more successful person. From now on, you should spend more time at sea and try to catch as many fish as possible. When you have saved enough money, you could buy a bigger boat and catch even more fish. Soon you will be able to afford to buy more boats, set up your own company, your own production plant for canned food and distribution network. By then, you will have moved out of this village and to Sao Paulo, where you can set up HQ to manage your other branches.” The fisherman…