I'm driven by desperation (and proud of it)
The world's most famous business author told me he was driven by desperation and it was an incredibly wise insight.
A few years ago, I interviewed the legendary Tom Peters on my podcast. Tom, perhaps the bestselling business author of all time (In Search of Excellence), was retiring and had written his last book. I asked him what his final advice to marketers worldwide would be.
He said, “When you go home at night, are you proud to tell your family what you did that day?”
Very cool. But that’s not where the Tom Peters story ends.
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Tom Peters[/caption]
Two years later, he had another book out! So ... I had him on the podcast again.
“Tom, what gives?” I asked. “You just told me you had retired. Now you have another book out?”
“I’m desperate to get my ideas out,” he said. “I don’t think enough people listened to me. You know, I think that makes the difference. The greatest speakers and authors are driven because they’re desperate to get their ideas into the world.”
This comment was gold. It is wise and true.
I think that kind of urgent passion truly separates a speaker who gets up on the stage to do a job from a speaker who wants to change the world in some small way. An author who phones it in just to say she wrote a book versus a writer who sweats over every word to make a difference.
That is certainly how it works for me. I know my ideas will help people. But, like Tom, sometimes I feel like I’m shouting from the rooftops and not enough people are listening.
Your personal brand is your last defense against AI.
AI is re-wiring humanity (and our customers) before our eyes and the world will never be the same.
Human marketing creativity will survive in the AI World, but it must interpret the human experience, like art.
Community is the last great marketing strategy
The most human company wins.
Dig deep for a moment. What are the ideas that are burning in your heart and soul? That could become a book or your greatest speech. Start now and don’t stop until people are listening to you.
I’ve had a great, long career. Most of my friends are retiring. I don’t even know what that looks like. I still have too many ideas to get into the world.
I feel like I’m just getting started.
Note: I have a few slots left in my personal branding class and this is probably the last class I will be teaching in 2026. If it’s time to share your greatest ideas, this is the place to start. Grab this opportunity here.
I appreciate you and the time you took out of your day to read this! You can find more articles like this from me on the top-rated {grow} blog and while you’re there, take a look at my Marketing Companion podcast and my keynote speaking page. For news and insights find me on Twitter at @markwschaefer, to see what I do when I’m not working, follow me on Instagram, and discover my RISE community here.
This is such a good insight, and I want to add a layer to it rather than push back on it.
What Tom's calling desperation, I'd call by a different name: conviction.
Not because desperation is the wrong word for how it feels — it probably is exactly how it feels — but because what's actually driving it isn't scarcity, it's cost.
Desperation usually comes from not having enough of something.
What Tom described sounds more like the discomfort of holding a belief you haven't finished saying yet — the specific kind of urgency that shows up once walking away from an idea costs more than staying uncomfortable and saying it anyway.
That's the exact distinction I've been excavating in my own work — the difference between certainty and conviction, and why only the second one actually moves anybody.
Curious what you'd say: when Tom told you that, did it read to you as fear of being unheard, or something closer to just not being able to not say it anymore?