Category: Life
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A fisherman and banker exchange numbers
I put this together based on the parable of the Mexican fisherman, as made famous by lifestyle design and the internet. (See also the situation where this parable doesn’t work out!)
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Donald Glover, on productive gentleness
When Donald Glover asks himself, “What’s a good man to you?” he replies, “Someone who knows themselves. Who loves themselves. My father was really gentle with us. Physically and mentally. It felt radical at the time. I really miss him.” Similarly, when he’s recently asked what advice he’d leave with his kids (emphasis added): The…
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Interviewing experts to learn
I recently appeared at Rich Armstrong’s Twitter Spaces, and the topic of meeting other people (“networking”) came up (1:06:35). It reminded me of a draft for career advice that I pitched Forge (it was just sitting around, and this was an opening to unstick it). When I was a junior in college, I was at…
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“Evolve or Die”
“Evolve or die” is one of the mottos in 50 Cent’s Hustle Harder, Hustle Smarter. He discusses his own adherence to the principle: When he put out new music in 2009, it still topped the charts, but he noticed the crowds at live shows weren’t responding to it as they used to. He observed that…
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Practice vs. perfection
If you’re wondering if you should’ve signed that email off differently, or worried that you didn’t convey a certain detail the ideal way, or if this is your only shot at something, you’re missing the bigger picture. When the stakes feel too high, something is off. Perfection shouldn’t be the expectation for a positive outcome. …
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Misunderstanding
It’s almost always worth giving someone else the benefit of the doubt. The experience of rejection, whether it’s as simple as a request to reschedule, or a long overdue response, can be a deceptive moment. Then there’s the bigger stuff: declined invitations or applications, missed weddings, missed connections in travelling. There’s no hint here; just…
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Craigslist
Whether you’re looking to hire, or for your next career opportunity, try Craigslist (or Facebook Groups, or really any other job board or set of classifieds). Wherever people are, go to them. Listen. Respond. See Walter Chen on hiring from Craigslist, also Eddie Huang finding his first Food Network media opportunity through Craigslist.
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Taking your own advice
Giving advice often benefits the giver as much as the receiver. That helps the case for daily blogging; in the process of looking for ideas, you may often feel like you’re giving advice. Sometimes you could be writing an unsolicited comment that was too heavy for a forum post, or stringing a bunch together. These…
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The smart thing vs. the right thing
The internet is riddled with so many posts on how to do things the smart way. You’ll see it in other words—“more efficiently,” “optimize,” “pareto principle,” “shortcut,” “insight”—etc. Effectively, it’s an acceptable way of suggesting, “Here’s a secret.” You may also have been trained to keep a radar up for these things; to always try…
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Solomon’s Paradox
“Solomon’s paradox of wise reasoning, in which performance of wisdom differs when reasoning on an issue in one’s own life vs. another’s life, has been supported by robust evidence,” write Wentao Xu, Kaili Zhang, and Fengyan Wang in Frontiers in Psychology. Sometimes, we’re too close to the problem; maybe it’s directly in our blind spot.…