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Rethinking Content Marketing Incentives
“To make marketing that doesn’t suck.” I can’t tell if this phrase had imprinted itself into my mind, or if it was an original thought — if there is such a thing — when I was thinking about the future of my business. Then again, this sort of thing is what content marketers do best.…
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Writing Is Building, Too
Reading Marc Andreessen’s recent article really brought me back. In 2013, when I interviewed eight entrepreneurs for a magazine I was making, this phrase came up almost every time: “Learn to build stuff.” My first thought was that writers, like me, build articles, essays, and blog posts. Sometimes we build entire blogs. At other times,…
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How to Be More Creative
Long before the World Economic Forum and LinkedIn identified creativity as one of the most important skills, people have wanted — needed — to be more creative. The problems we face today are more challenging, complex, and ever-changing. Being more creative is tricky because we’ve made creativity mystical. It’s a force that has only recently,…
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Aim High, but Make Sure You Shoot
Rebranding, “Done Is Better than Perfect” “Worse is better,” is the perfect blend of catchy and counterintuitive. It’s a meme; it captures a trend, its catchiness enables its spread, and bolstered its traction as an idea. The phrase was originally used by Richard Gabriel in his paper, “Lisp: Good News,Bad News, How to Win Big.”…
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What Nobody Told You About the First Draft
“When you get an idea, don’t hold it,” architect Vittorio de Feo said. Recalling his master’s quote in Why Architects Still Draw, Paolo Belardi adds that when you get an idea, not taking action right away risks destroying the idea’s vitality. Sketch the idea immediately; draw impulsively, and transcribe unconscious energy from the brain to…
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Why the “Best” Way Is Your Own Way
Advice from James Cameron, on Not Taking Advice For years, I have been a hoarder and disseminator of advice; and I only found advice worth taking by measuring the success of the giver. It wasn’t the most critical way of thinking, and I figured if I found what successful people did, I’d also be able…
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To Make Better Creative Work, Aim for Acceptable, Not Perfect
Perfection can be a complex, philosophical, topic. My current stance: There is such a thing as 100%. If you’re into films, you know Roger Ebert gave four stars to great movies. Kanye West’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy was ranked by the Rolling Stone as the #1 album of the 2010s; just a few years…
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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.…