Stephen King once playfully chided Thomas Harris, author of the Hannibal Lecter series, for bringing out a book only once every seven years. “What does he do with all the time in-between?!” King took a similar prod at the creator of the Song of Ice and Fire series, on which Game of Thrones was based.

And he has a point. It’s one thing to take your time ensuring a quality product. It’s another to become terminally hesitant, depriving the world of what they most love about you.

This week, spare a moment to answer this question: What single act of productivity, or instance of creation, most dramatically propelled your career? Was it a book you wrote, a presentation you delivered, a project you completed? Was it a media appearance or a new product launch?

That answered, let me ask you the next question: When will you do it again?

Will you squander that glorious momentum and fade out? Or can you move on to the next thing, and then the next thereafter?

Mental fertility and constant production are hallmarks of top performers. They are the toll you pay for leadership.

Speaking of Stephen King and his lessons about productivity, this past week, Penguin gave me some delightful news. My first book on expert-positioning, Own Your Industry, has just gone into yet another print-run, six years down the line. In one of the early chapters of that, my first book on the subject, I mentioned King and his breakaway first novel, ‘Carrie.’

I made the point that this book alone would have been insufficient to have turned King into the iconic household name he is today. It was necessary for him to follow it up with more of the same, and did he ever, with nearly fifty years’ additional productivity under his belt since the psychic and vengeful Prom Queen debuted in 1974…

So six years down the line, I will pose the same question I originally asked you in ‘Own Your Industry’: Will you disappear into obscurity? Or will you go on to your ‘Salem’s Lot’? Armed with an ‘on-to-the-next-thing’ mentality, you could own your industry.

Douglas Kruger is a bestselling author and speaker. Book him as the motivational speaker at your next event via www.douglaskruger.com.