It’s hard to take advice when it conflicts with what you want to do. Consider this

I had a chance to see myself in a kind of mirror last week. I saw a person I know is there but that I want to ignore. By seeing someone else do what I do (and won’t admit that I do), I now must admit it.

My husband, a friend and I had the opportunity to offer some thoughts to a scientist who wants to be a biotech entrepreneur. He’s obviously brilliant. He has come up with an idea that could revolutionize cancer treatment. But he is naïve when it comes to how to commercialize it. He asked for some outsider business perspective. We gave it and he didn’t want to hear it.

He wants $35 million to bring his idea to fruition (testing on animals, then humans, etc.) and asked my banker husband how to get money from investors. Then came a short lecture on the difference between angel and venture capital investors, how bankers would look at such a venture, what the pitfalls are and the importance of having partners — lawyers, accountants, business people.

We suggested the free resources in any large city with universities – there are several where he lives. He dismissed the ones we suggested, because they asked him to fill out some forms and come up with some numbers so they could gauge how to help him. He said, “They just don’t understand biotech.” It felt like he refused to learn their language and culture but rather expected them to come to him.

The scientist is originally from Latin America. Spanish is his first language, and yet he spoke English with us. He didn’t expect us to learn Spanish to be able to interact with him. But he didn’t seem to understand that he needs to learn enough business language to converse with people in that culture, in that world.

We ended our conversation. The next day, he sent an email saying that he understood what he needed to do and would find an investor in the next few days. Wow.

And that was my aha.

I realized I’m in a similar state. I am trying hard to learn to write fiction books but really had not thought about it from the reader’s view enough. What do readers want? How do I write for someone else, not for myself?

So I’m trying to enter that new world, bit by bit, like learning a new language. I hope the scientist entrepreneur does the same, at some point.

We’ll see who reaches that goal first!

Nancy Napier is a distinguished professor at Boise State University in Idaho. nnapier@boisestate.edu. She is co-author of “The Bridge Generation of Vietnam: Spanning Wartime to Boomtime.”