Every job carries occupational hazards.

If it comes as a constant surprise each and every time something unexpected occurs, you're not only going to be miserable whenever you attempt something big, you're going to have a much harder time accepting it and moving on to attempts two, three, and four.

The primary occupational hazard of blogging is this: it's easier when you yourself take on some of the traits of insanity. It's a job that requires the doer to be selfish, self-absorbed, and superficial.

In 2007, I went to work in Beverly Hills as an intern at The Collective, a talent management agency. I'd been scouted for the job because of a blog I'd started in college and because the blogger-turned-author I worked for, Tucker Max, was producing a project with the company.

If you ask most smart or successful people where they learned their craft, they will not talk to you about their time in school. It's always a mentor, a particularly transformative job, or a period of experimentation or trial and error.

Writing the perfect paper is a lot like a military operation. It takes discipline, foresight, research, strategy, and, if done right, ends in total victory.