Author: Herbert Lui
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“You’re nobody here at $10 million”
Gary Kremen, founder of Match.com with a self-estimated net worth of $10 million in 2007, logs 60- to 80-hour workweeks because he doesn’t think he has enough money. He says to the New York Times: Everyone around here looks at the people above them. It’s just like Wall Street, where there are all these financial…
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Authors write
If you set out to be an author, the key part of your job is to write your own opinions, referencing others for confirmation. If you want to write books, the key part of your job is to research and write books. Here are other parts of the job: While the other parts of the…
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How many doors can you open?
Before Jann Mardenborough became a professional racecar driver, he was obsessively driving in the Gran Turismo simulator on PlayStation. Then, he came across GT Academy, a program that would train PlayStation racing gamers to become professional racing drivers. This tournament was extremely competitive; millions of people would apply to join GT Academy. You can practically…
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What does success mean to you, now?
You’ve probably changed a lot this year. Certainly in the past few. Does your definition of success keep up with where you are now, or where you want to go in the future? If you’re making a professional pivot, or you’re turning a company around—in other words, changing the course of your work or life…
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Playing injured
Professional athletes play in all sorts of conditions. They play when they’re injured. They play when they’re sick with the flu. They play through heartbreak. It’s not ideal, but setbacks happen—and athletes keep playing. This philosophy and practice can apply to all sorts of other fields. (For example, advertisers keep advertising.) When you play through…
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Going direct buys you freedom
A friend of mine works professionally as a keynote speaker. He gets a lot of speaking clients from his agency. His mentor once asked him, “Who’s your boss, you or your agency?” As long as his agency provides him with the majority of his business, he would be working for them. Similarly, if an artist…
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When prestige narrows horizons
Patrick Bringley writes about his time working at The New Yorker in All the Beauty in the World: It took me almost three years to grasp an unwelcome paradox. If I were working a less “impressive” job, I would be scribbling my thoughts down in obscurity, free to take big swings at whatever topic inspired…
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The pinnacle of success
“You have reached the pinnacle of success as soon as you become uninterested in money, compliments, or publicity.” Orlando Aloysius Battista, via MoneyZen by Manisha Thakor
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Dealing in hope
One can lead a nation only by helping it see a bright outlook. A leader is a dealer in hope. Napoléon Bonaparte (via Prehistoric by Alex Wong)
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Writing is transference of energy
When you’re editing, consider how the order of information can shift the energy of the work. You can do this starting at the most zoomed out: at a section level, then paragraph level, then sentence level, then individual word level. Some sections will need more love than others. You’ll need to cut some turns of…