Category: Creativity
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Desire vs. drive
A desire passes. “Oh, that is so cool,” you say. A strong desire may even consume your mind for a few days, but eventually you forget about it. A drive is more like a compulsion. “I need to do that,” or “It has to be this way,” and you can’t stop thinking about it for…
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Rejection calibration
If you don’t think you’ll write up a successful application, you might choose to barely show up. You feel like the odds are against you. Why put the effort in if you’re not going to get what you want, anyway? If you think somebody doesn’t like you, you might behave like you don’t like them.…
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“I don’t accept that…”
There’s a really great letter that Vincent van Gogh wrote in response to criticism from Anthon van Rappard. Van Gogh makes it clear that he doesn’t accept Van Rappard’s critique calling the totality of Van Gogh’s work totally extremely weak, “The work in question, painting the peasants, is such laborious work that the extremely weak…
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Foresight is not essential
James Naismith invented basketball when he was really just trying to keep a bunch of rowdy students busy indoors during a blizzard. One day, he saw a boy in the gym tossing a ball toward the basket, picking it up, and tossing it again. An hour later, he passed by the gym again and saw…
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Self-belief vs. the odds
Of the 49,000 members of the Actors’ Equity Association, the national union of stage actors, about 17,000 work at a median income of $7,500 in 2013. That’s not considering actors who don’t qualify for or participate in the union, who are likely paid less or working less. The conventional path of an actor is built…
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Don’t let the name stop you
Naming your business or your project is an important decision. A good name will help people remember your work and make a good guess about what it is, a bad name will confuse them or worse—give them a reason not to take your work seriously. Julien Smith wrote a really good guide here, and I’ve…
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Re-appraising perfection
The story of perfect: Perfect is free of fault, incompletion, and error. Perfect is safety. Perfect is first place, a gold medal, or 100%. It is happily ever after, the peak of excellence, something to remember while also setting and forgetting. This is the imagined reality we live in, a story based on the assumption…
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Liberating rules vs. governing rules
In my early 20s, I found myself getting easily distracted by social media. So I introduced a rule into my life, which was to check social media only after 6pm. That particular rule was great, because it freed me from the possibility of getting a quick, thin, reward. I was free to be more present,…
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What’s right vs. who’s right
Shane Parrish was talking to a woman who was one of two candidates to become the next CEO in her organization. She approached him with a difficult problem that the organization faced, and her proposed solution. It would work, but it would be complicated and risky to execute. She also told him there was another…
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Basketball evolved because its inventor let go of control
On December 21, 1891, there was a big blizzard in Springfield, Massachusetts. Students wouldn’t be able to go outside for days. A thirty-year-old Canadian teacher at the YMCA Training School, James Naismith, had to figure out how to keep his students busy. James started off with a game of indoor football, which was too violent,…