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Life doesn’t happen to you, it happens for you
“Life is simple. Everything happens for you, not to you. Everything happens at exactly the right moment, neither too soon nor too late. You don’t have to like it… it’s just easier if you do.” — Byron Katie I originally heard this sentiment in a Tim Ferriss podcast. I’m guessing he got it from Katie.…
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How to stop overthinking and make magic happen
The line between thinking and overthinking is a thin one. It’s hard for anyone to discern where they are relative to it. Err on the side of action, and build momentum. Sometimes, you have to dumb it down. There’s no shortage of sayings, like, “Done is better than perfect,” or, “No time like the present,”…
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You should only compete with one person: yourself
Source: The Mushroom Kingdom It’s easy to compare yourself against other people especially as they flood our screens with images. But when you compete against other people, you judge yourself based on their values and metrics. The problem with this is even if you win, you only do something that’s important to them, not you.…
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How average first drafts become extraordinary
The myth of great art is that it’s created through spurts of inspiration, genius, and epiphanies. This isn’t always the case. Rather, great art can evolve from what seems like very ordinary, average, rough drafts, often created during very ordinary moments. Not unlike an agile sprint or a lean startup, artists will then get feedback,…
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Why you should work on one thing at a time
I grasped one of the my important productivity insights when I worked at Xtreme Labs: the importance of doing one thing at a time. Our VP of Engineering, Farhan Thawar, was a proponent of “monotasking,” and he warned against multitasking and distraction. Professor Gloria Mark from the University of California, Irvine, told Fast Company that…
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How the U.S.A.’s first billionaire destroyed the myth of hard work (i.e., “hustle”)
The lazy, concentrated, approach to work that made John D. Rockefeller “I attribute my good condition to my almost reckless independence in determining for myself what to do and the rigid adhering to regulations which give me the maximum of rest and quiet and leisure, and I am being richly paid for it every day.” — John…
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Don’t wait until you feel more confident. Action comes first
There’s a quote often attributed to Henry Ford, “Whether you believe you can do a thing or not, you are right.” Something like this might your mind as you watch as these other people, chin up, assured, relaxed, almost effortlessly do exactly what you wanted to do. The reason many of them are able to…
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Consider your conveniences
You’re running late for a meeting. You push the elevator button. Ugh, the closest one is still 23 floors up. You reach into your pocket. You pull out your phone. Peter sent you a message. Ahhhhh. What did he say? You slide the screen and check. Peter: Hey, I got some tickets to the Jays…
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Creative excess leads to creative success
There is no substitute for creative waste. It’s a part of the process I’m listening to Pharrell speak with NPR when he says he doesn’t know where his hits come from, or why they were hits in the first place. They just work. He laughs and calls himself the Mr. Magoo of music. I find…
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Choose or others will choose for you
The old saying goes, “Those who stand for nothing fall for anything.” Or, more appropriately, as Madame Gao tells Wilson Fisk in Daredevil: “Man cannot be both savior and oppressor, light and shadow, one has to be sacrificed for the other. Choose, and choose wisely, or others will choose for you.” No matter what you…