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Reality vs. possibility
I recently moved out of NYC. The way I was set up there simply wasn’t working. For example, by the time I wrapped up work, I felt depleted, without the energy to respond to a city that was calling out. Just a week after leaving, and wrapping up my job, the possibilities are starting to…
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Art about art
On a recent visit to the Art Gallery of Ontario, I came across J.L. Gérôme’s “The Antique Pottery Painter,” which was accompanied by this statement: Artists often have the ability to make us believe their paintings are real. Gérôme mastered and exploited this quality, using the incredibly smooth surface we see here to challenge our…
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What would a doctor do?
Doctors don’t look for clients. They look for patients. A doctor helps a patient diagnose their health condition, and puts a plan together for the patient to recover and heal. A good doctor doesn’t need to pitch you to be their patient. In fact, if you find a doctor being overly pushy, it’s a signal…
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It’s easier to make art, harder to make a living off it
“It’s easier than ever to make music, and harder than ever to make a living from it,” Luc Rinaldi writes. This statement applies well to writing. Perhaps it’s a matter of expectation: too many people expect to make a living from art. Maybe it’s because we are exposed to a lot of artists who have…
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The bad joke phenomenon
When you get promoted, other people will laugh harder at your jokes and seem to excuse your tardiness. The feedback signals that had previously guided your behavior will seem distorted because you’ve gained power and status. Daniel Shapero calls this the “bad joke” phenomenon (via Rohan Rajiv), and he suggests three ways to accommodate this:…
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Your chance to change a life
My good friend Faiz is a pro basketball coach. Yao Ming hired him to coach China’s national team. He has also personally coached NBA champion Lu Dort. You can see him briefly in Netflix’s doc Court of Gold. He’s gotten a lot of other coaching experience too. You’d never guess: he’s been doing all of…
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The facade of a lottery
Seth Godin recently wrote about seeing lottery elements in schools, sports, and on social media. Actually seeing lotteries is actually more difficult than it sounds. For starters, lotteries are well disguised. If you bluntly told an Olympian that they were effectively a lottery winner, they might think you’re telling them their efforts didn’t matter, and…