The Moronic Mindset

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I am very close to completing my book, in fact other than some editing and the writing of the intro I am almost there. All the material is written from scratch other than one chapter. I really wanted to use something from my favorite audio book programme The Maverick Mindset by Dr. John Eliot and refer people back to a book that has been a great source of inspiration to me as a life coach.

I wrote the chapter and credited the source as mentioned. I presumed, as the account was in the public domain that it was therefore fair game.  But I thought I better just check so I e-mailed Dr Eliot and asked for formal permission to use the story. Within minutes I had a reply denying me the use and saying the material was copyrighted. I wrote back explaining more fully my intentions, my intention to push people toward buying the book or cd but heard nothing more.

I have to admit I was disappointed but hey-ho life goes on and there isn’t much I can do about it. I was relaying this story to a friend last night and he said to me ‘wow, what a jerk, I bet you have lost all respect for that guy’ for a split second I was about to agree and then I stopped to think.

My respect for John Eliot was based around his writing and his body of work (or rather a very small part of it that I am aware of) and nothing has changed there so how on earth could I lose any respect? I never knew the guy personally and I have no idea why he turned me down, his reasons may be very valid. I am sure he gets other similar requests and to get dragged into an e-mail exchange explaining his reasons would be timely and probably fruitless.  Not only do I not know him but also he doesn’t know me so an uninvited e-mail requesting something for nothing from a guy he doesn’t know was probably given the short shrift it deserved.

It would have been easy for me to have agreed with my friend and slipped into the Moronic Mindset of the victim who everybody is conspiring against, but that would have been a bigger waste of time than I actually used writing that chapter in the first place ;-)