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Playoff mode
In amateur and professional sports, the year is typically structured into a series of games known as a regular season. Not to be confused with a season in nature, a sports season can last the majority of the year. For example, in the NBA, each team plays 82 games from October to April in a…
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Pronoia
Pronoia is the opposite of paranoia. In ambiguous situations, you’re probably better off biasing your thoughts in favor of positive outcomes. When you believe that the world is conspiring in your favor, you start behaving in ways that contribute to a positive outcome. Your attitude is more positive and expansive; you’re open-minded, mindful, and relaxed.…
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The action imperative
A bias for action can be a powerful way to drive change. It can also be an excuse to stay busy; to cave into impatience, and to avoid the difficult work of gathering information, learning, and thinking. In The First 90 Days, Michael Watkins calls this the action imperative, describing it as, “You feel as…
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It is what it is
For the first time in many years, I started watching the NBA playoffs. I just found out about Cam’ron’s show, It Is What It Is. The latest episode is here: Everything I know about Cam I pretty much know through the big Dipset songs and Eddie Huang’s references (like Cam’s parody rhymebook). There’s a lot…
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Holding back the good stuff
If you’re an artist, you will need to balance between delivering good work that matches your vision, and delivering the work at the level you’re capable of delivering. For example, sometimes there’s just not enough time, energy, and resources to do good work. Other times, timing isn’t right—the world isn’t ready to receive a certain…
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“Problems” create meaning
I recently revisited this blog post I wrote almost a year ago. Here’s the passage that inspired the headline, from Oliver Burkeman’s Four Thousand Weeks (p. 180–181): Behind our urge to race through every obstacle or challenge, in an effort to get it “dealt with,” there’s usually the unspoken fantasy that you might one day…
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The best
Optimus means “the best” in Greek. It’s the root word of common ones in our culture, like, “optimize,” and, “optimism.” Optimize: The “-ize” in “optimize” means “to make,” so the whole word means “to make the best.” Optimism: The “-ism” in “optimism” means “taking side with,” or “imitation of,” so the whole word means “to…
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You see the world as you are
There’s a quote attributed to Anaïs Nin and Stephen Covey, “We see the world not as it is, but as we are.” While the quote’s origin is unclear, its resonance is clear. In The Art of Possibility (pp. 10-11), Roz and Ben Zander quote three neuroscientists who share a similar perspective: The British neuropsychologist Richard…
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Virgil Abloh’s first website
For me, there are few things more exciting or entertaining than diving into a person’s early work. The more I like the work, the more early work I want to see. I recently came across the term, “nerdsniping,” from Paul Millerd. That sensation sums up what I experience when I’m researching the process of an…
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The liking gap
“We found that following interactions, people systematically underestimated how much their conversation partners liked them and enjoyed their company, an illusion we call the liking gap.” The Liking Gap in Conversations: Do People Like Us More Than We Think? by Erica J. Boothby, Gus Cooney, Gillian M. Sandstrom, and Margaret S. Clark (via Platonic by Marisa…