Category: Life
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Instinct
Instinct is an incredible tool for entrepreneurs and artists. If you’re in the early stages of doing something that’s heading in the direction you intended, you’ll feel the momentum. Maybe you tell your friends about it, and they approach you with an opportunity to do business together. Or you’re tapping into a new source of…
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Teaching yourself
The ability (and confidence) to teach yourself something is a wonderful thing. Depending on the subject, though, it’s often a very time-intense process. Once you can afford to, walk both paths; take the class, and teach yourself. Two teachers are better than one.
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When the Mexican fisherman parable breaks
I’ve seen this parable everywhere for years, most recently in Oliver Burkeman’s Four Thousand Weeks (great book!), and I’ve usually appreciated it: A vacationing New York businessman who gets talking to a Mexican fisherman, who tells him that he works only a few hours per day and spends most of his time drinking wine in…
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72 seasons
An ancient Japanese calendar marked time in 72 seasons, ushering in a new season approximately every 5 days. That probably sounds strange to me and you, because we’re so used to thinking of seasons in 3 month increments. (Actually in Toronto it’s more like two seasons and 6 month increments…you get the idea.) Time is…
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Departure eyes
One of the best—and most bittersweet—aspects of travel is not just arriving in a new place, but departing a familiar one. Oftentimes, departing a place you call home. It’s an occasion that brings out the flavor of home. You appreciate buildings you walked past without a second glance. The most mundane details grow more loveable,…
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Work isn’t meant to be escaped
Entrepreneur Curtis Jackson, also known as recording artist 50 Cent, writes in Hustle Harder, Hustle Smarter: One of the most important realizations I came to early in my business career is that I’m running through an endless tunnel. What I mean by that is I came to understand that there’s no “happily ever after.” No…
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Breaking the curse of perspective
It’s so easy to spot other people’s blind spots, and it’s incredibly difficult to spot your own. Sometimes, that’s because we’re effectively blind to it; our perspective of the world doesn’t allow us to see what’s really happening. Other times, it’s because we don’t want to see it; our perspective of the world protects us…
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Replace rankings
The leaderboard is one of the most common diagrams we use to measure the best and the worst. Whether it’s, “Top five, dead or alive,” or “Stack ranking,” we use rankings as a way to make decisions. Unfortunately, with letter grades and awards, we’re also the constant subject of rankings; so much so that we…
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Less is a practice
Throughout life, we’re taught to pick up more stuff. I mean this not only in the literal sense of buying products, but also in the sense of work. Exploring and picking up more opportunities. Exploiting current opportunities more. Meeting more people. It’s easy to say that you’re going to do less, which seems to be…
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Printing lottery tickets
Here’s something that’s difficult to be honest about: Positive outcomes can’t be entirely designed or engineered. Sometimes they need exploration, discovery, and curiosity. These projects probably won’t have clear payoffs or immediate expected value; in fact, most of the time, they won’t. But with each project and insight, you’re also opening up new possible futures…