Category: Life
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Never take offense that you have to negotiate
Here’s something I wish I knew a decade ago (or even just five years ago): This is the other huge mistake people make when they start negotiating. They take offense at what’s being offered because they feel it’s an unfair representation of what they’ve put in. Please understand this: negotiations are not personal. Again, I…
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Eigenzeit
While I’ve known about the concept of Eigenzeit for a couple of years, which Oliver Burkeman likens to, “the insight that meaningful productivity often comes not from hurrying things up but from letting them take the time they take,” working full-time at Figma has created an opportunity for me to actually practice it. I’ve often…
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To balance out overthinking, ask yourself, “How hard can it be?”
Recently, Acquired.fm asked Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang what company he would start today. Jensen says: “I wouldn’t do it, and the reason for that is really quite simple (ignoring the company that we would start—first of all, I’m not exactly sure). The reason why I wouldn’t do it—and it goes back to why it’s so…
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The point of taking notes isn’t to take notes, it’s to think more effectively
When I first started digitizing my paper notes, I was on the fence choosing between Roam and Notion. It felt like a paralyzing choice; if I made the wrong move now, I experienced this sense of fear that I’d eventually be bogged down by the legacy architecture. I ended up choosing Notion, and that was…
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Opportunities are earned
If someone takes a chance on you, or you’ve found yourself with an opportunity you’re not sure you deserve, the best thing you can do—for yourself, and the other party—is earn it. In 1998, Peyton Manning signed a $48 million contract with the Indiana Colts. “People ask me what I plan to do with my…
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For better video calls, play a soundtrack
Ali Abdaal writes in his newsletter: Whenever I’m on a Zoom call, I put my headphones or AirPods in. I then open up YouTube, and find an ambient soundtrack that I play at 5% volume (eg: Lord of the Rings ambience, Harry Potter ambience etc). This way, as I’m taking the call, there’s a soft,…
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Philip Glass, on independence
I had an ensemble at the time. I would go out and play for three weeks. We would come back from the tour, and we usually had lost money so I had to make money immediately. I put an ad in the paper. My cousin and I ran the company, and I moved furniture for…
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Fun is fun, compromised or otherwise
The reality is nobody loves your baby (or pet) as much as you do. We were ceding our sacred Saturday night to something — to age, to a lifestyle we weren’t ready for, to an identity we didn’t claim, to having to be less drunk than we wanted to be because the children were watching…
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Finding a way, with minutes a day
These days, it feels easy to get carried away. Energy from a jolt of inspiration—or constant jolts from social media—build an idea up quickly. The problem with these grand aspirations is when its size gets in the way; when you feel like you don’t have enough time to do something, you put it off into…
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A little flame of talent
At Granta, Kent Haruf writes: When I finished that novel I wrote John Irving to ask if he would connect me with his agent, and he said he would. He said he had sent fifty writers to his agent and he hadn’t taken any of them, but maybe he’d take me. And he did: I…