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Friends pay full price
Several months ago, I met a new friend and gave them a copy of Creative Doing as a gift. They responded that they would buy another copy, saying, “Friends pay full price.” It was refreshing, the complete flip of the usual friends and family discount. (Or in my case, giving gift copies.) When you reciprocate…
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On lateness and imperfection
At my first job, I realized that I’d missed a meeting invite and my team had started without me. I was early in my career, and hesitant to join the meeting late in-person. I felt embarrassed and, without knowing it, I started beating myself up. How could I be so inept? If I could make…
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Greatness means avoiding stupid mistakes consistently
Shane Parrish writes at Brain Food, “Moments don’t make legends. Consistency does. And the hardest consistency isn’t in doing brilliant things but avoiding stupid ones. Every mistake puts you in hard mode, forcing you to make up lost ground.” In some lines of work, a person must go through an apprenticeship that takes years—even a…
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The new direction
When you’re exploring a new direction in your career, you are bound to experience confusion. It is a particularly painful, vulnerable, emotion. You may experience an emotional instinct to reach out and fall back into the familiar. All of a sudden, the old, familiar, well-trodden path doesn’t look so bad anymore. At least you have…
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Itoya and the charm of stationary
While corporations such as Staples or Office Depot may sell supplies, a retailer like Itoya sells stationary. The difference is stationary comes with a charm just as essential as the equipment—creativity, possibilities, and consideration. If you visit Itoya’s 18-floor flagship store in Ginza, you’ll find all sorts of incredible products. When I went, I saw…
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Just do the real thing (again)
If you want to get good at something, just start by doing it. Today. Sam Altman writes an important reminder on this: don’t outsmart yourself and spend precious time and energy working on fake prerequisites. Here’s an example, from my life, that I write about in Creative Doing: I felt like I needed to have…
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The vessel heuristic
What if, when you made art, you weren’t expressing yourself? What if you were a vessel for something greater to express themselves through? “The human mind is literally an antenna,” Pharrell says. “It picks up waves and transmissions from the ultimate source, from the ether.” “The sculpture is already complete within the marble block, before…