A long time ago, a young Japanese man decided to open his own jazz bar. His bar did well, even though he noticed that only a tenth of the people who went there came back. The other nine never returned. But that was all he needed to sustain his one-in-ten business.
Reflecting on this observation he wrote:
"It didn't matter if nine out of ten people didn't like my bar. If that one in ten was a repeat customer, that's enough and my business would survive. This realization took a weight off my shoulders. But I still had to make sure he really liked my space. And to make sure, I had to make my philosophy and attitude clear and patiently maintain that attitude no matter what.”
He stuck to his position and his bar amassed a small but growing base of loyal customers. But as time went on, a different issue arose that plagued him:
He was extremely introverted and longed to be alone. Running a bar forced him to deal with people all day every day. This "drained" him. Something had to change.
Suddenly he got the idea to write a novel. He started working on it right away. His writing was unorthodox and different from the others. But he was authentic to who he was, and so he continued to write, using only pen and paper.
When he wrote a book, he sent it to a publisher.
Mind you, this was the only copy he had, so in sending it he also lost his book. If the publisher didn't like it, he wouldn't see his book again. Then she waited patiently for his answer. Of course, he remembered that it doesn't really matter what a publisher thinks, because all it takes is one in ten.
Months later he had forgotten about the book, until he got a call. He was the publisher. The author was Haruki Murakami.
I was impressed But he was genuine!!!!!