Category: Creator Confidential
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Me and you
A comedian loves his audience. He wants to make them laugh. For this reason, he is also afraid of them. If they’re displeased by, or worse—indifferent to—his routine, he may second guess himself. He might not just change his approach; he might take fewer risks. He knows that when that happens, he’s doomed. I remember…
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Pineapples, pizza, and possibility
Do you like pineapples on your pizza? The style is known as a Hawaiian pizza, and it’s a polarizing topic. For example, the former president of Iceland joked that he’d ban pineapples on pizza if he could. When I lived in New York City, I searched far and wide before finding a half decent restaurant…
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Collect underpants → ??? → Profit: A guide to filling in the question marks in your plans
There’s a TV trope called the Missing Steps Plan (it’s also an internet meme). Here’s an example from a South Park episode, which involves gnomes stealing underpants: We are all missing steps in our wishes and dreams. The question is to what degree. For example, someone who hasn’t cooked and wants to cook might have…
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Three useful pieces of advice for public speaking
In a vaulted episode of New Material, I received public speaking advice from Hamza (and, in exchange, advised him on publicity). While I was very focused on speaking as a business opportunity, Hamza’s most powerful advice for me was to practice speaking as its own craft, exactly like I treated writing. With that intention, I’ve…
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The paranoid only survive if it doesn’t kill them first
“Only the paranoid survive,” is a great business book title. It also contains a kernel of truth for business leaders. Without paranoia, the people running a business will grow complacent, and lose to a more innovative competitor. The flip side is this: paranoia can kill too. The entrepreneur who deals with anxiety, fear, and insecurity…
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Make your phone dumber so it’s less addictive
A smartphone—like an iPhone, or one that runs Android—is capable of many things. It can help you do your shopping. It can keep you in touch with thousands of people. It can notify you whenever someone is reaching out to you. Whatever your laptop computer can do, you can probably do it on your smartphone…
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Robert Frost on uniting your hobby and vocation
Good things happen when you find the Overlap. Here’s an excerpt from a poem by Robert Frost (via Jim O’Shaughnessy) that describes the Overlap very well: My object in living is to uniteMy avocation and my vocationAs my two eyes make one in sight.Only where love and need are one,And the work is play for…
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Making art is a small part of the job
DJ Khaled is an artist, and a very popular one at that. He doesn’t sing, rap, or make the beat. He makes songs by finding good instrumental tracks and hiring other artists to record over it. Some people—maybe a lot of them—take this to mean that he doesn’t make music. So what does he actually…