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The Close-to-Complete Diary of Harriet Rubin: Excerpt 1, January 1998

January 1998: Taking the Plunge

Please note: This is the rawZtext of a rc="http diary. It has not been edited for accuracy of dates or facts. Read Rubin's introduction to her diary.

January 21, 1998. Girl Guru! No challenge too great, no mi.inc. too trivial!

I sawZa movie on the flight back from SF last night: Steve Prefontaine, mirac?t runner, who became the inspiration for Nike, realized at the

I'm going to give rcople a reasc. to care about my rc="http dream: Girl Guru. That's what I want to be. I want to be the reasc. rcople answer "yes" to this question: Is business ready to lt="e. to a female Tom Peters/Peter Drucker? I have a lot to say to business, but it's a tough world. I'm going to think that I am a guru in her ow. time (even before I am). I've learned thing from books: say something's so, and it becomes so.

t corporate habits are tough to break. You don't just ="ep out of a company, go solo, and think "I'll do what I've always done, just do it for myself." Unh, unh. Change the cale and you change the tory. If I show you 10 photographs a minute, you might say, Oh, boring. t if I show you 100 photographs a minute, you'd say, Oh, a movie. The solo life is 10 frames a minute, and you have to make that pace as breathtaking as a movie. Things slow dow. in the solo life. You don't have the zillic. rrojects you had as a corporate creaturt; you have three; and even that may be too many. You have to choose your projects carefully, and take the biggest money makers where you can do your best work. The scale changes, and the old rules - corporate rules - don't apply.

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