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Tradeoffs
Annie Duke writes in Thinking in Bets, “The quality of our lives is the sum of decision quality plus luck.” Indeed, everything is about choices. Often, these choices may appear as A, or B? Should I dedicate my life to what makes me money, or what I feel passionate about? Should I be active at…
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The four inner beings of a writer
Susan Sontag writes in her journal: The writer must be four people: 1) The nut, the obsédé 2) The moron 3) The stylist 4) The critic 1 supplies the material; 2 lets it come out; 3 is taste; 4 is intelligence. A great writer has all 4 but you can still be a good writer…
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Dan Crowe, on starting Port Magazine
I’m in the middle of developing a speech for Creative Doing right now, and the research process led me to revisit an interview I did with Dan Crowe (who most recently launched INQUE magazine) a few years ago. A few excerpts from Dan that I really loved: “My friends and I that launched [Port], we…
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The myth of “with zero marketing”
Marketing constantly, and practically inevitably, suffers from attribution problems at all scales. Occasionally, someone I’m considering doing business would tell me more about their business’s momentum, and snarkily add, “Oh, and we did all of this without marketing!” The savvier ones pretend that they’re embarrassed about it. (They’re not. It’s a brag.) The main problem…
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Make a map
I recently came across Dishoom’s cookery book, a “highly subjective guide to Bombay with map.” The description very clearly explained a path to becoming a leading thinker or authority on something: make a map. The most obvious place is to start with an area you’re familiar with; where you live, where you work, your favorite…
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What the heck took Yeezy Gap so long?
Here are the facts: As a brand, whatever Gap was doing on its own wasn’t working. If you search New York Times for “Gap,” the latest articles mentioning the company all revolve around Yeezy Gap. Yeezy Gap rolled out two pieces in 18 months; at this pace, the alliance would need to break inertia, otherwise…
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The mythical secret sauce
“How on earth did they find the time to do that?” To learn the skill while they did their full-time job. To juggle the equivalent to two full-time jobs. To write a blog every day. I can tell you, having written at this blog for 150 days now, that it looks more like this: you…
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Yeezy video game history in three snapshots
In addition to Yeezy Gap engineered by Balenciaga drops, Yeezy dropped a video game: I played it. It was simple, not particularly mind-blowing or buzzworthy. But it was also worth appreciating that this has been a long time in the making; it took several years just to get to this starting line. I’m glad Ye…
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Quality control
When I started Wonder Shuttle, I was uncontrollably obsessive with quality control. I started out as a freelance writer, so the first thing I had to do was let go of control. Still, in my mind, every article had to run through me; I was the last line of defense, the buck stopped with me,…
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You won’t know until you do it
The trouble with wanting to learn how to do something accurately—knowing how it’ll turn out, knowing how much effort you need to put in, even knowing the purpose and reasons you need to do it, sometimes—is that you need to do it first. It’s a paradox. Some experiences you can only get firsthand. It’s expensive…