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Easy, boring, and obvious
When an idea or task is boring, obvious, and easy to you, you might want to dismiss it. It feels low effort, or even effortless. But just because it comes naturally to you, doesn’t mean it does for everyone else. You may have stumbled into your core strengths—a zone of genius that other people want…
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Feedback vs. validation
Imagine you bump into someone you idolize. You muster up the courage to introduce yourself and talk a bit about your work. They offer to have a look and give you feedback. You accept. You were hoping they would love it, but they only offer critical comments. It’s not in a mean spirit, but the…
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Negative capability
A few months ago, I’d set a deadline for myself to finish a new book by Halloween. I’m working as hard and consistently as I can on the book, but that deadline is not going to happen. I could have shipped the incomplete manuscript as it is, Virgil Abloh style, but I decided against that.…
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Out of the comfort zone
I recently started a podcast called New Material with my friend Hamza Khan. It’s been an incredibly energizing project, and has stretched my creative abilities in all sorts of ways I couldn’t have imagined. Even though I write here every day, I mostly stay in my comfort zone. Without thinking too much about it, I…
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A reminder
The artist who created Calvin and Hobbes, Bill Watterson, wrote a beautiful commencement speech for Kenyon College. Here’s an excerpt from it (emphasis added): But having an enviable career is one thing, and being a happy person is another. Creating a life that reflects your values and satisfies your soul is a rare achievement. In…
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Read the room
When you’re presenting online, one helpful way to think about voice, tone, and style is to consider its physical equivalent scenario. For example, let’s say you’re making a video that’s going on YouTube. What are you going to talk about, and how do you want to sound? When you change the metaphorical environment and audience,…
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Optional vs. required vs. prohibited
Are you more likely to do something when it’s optional, required, or prohibited? Which frame of a task energizes you more? For example, what if the reading lists in English class weren’t framed with required reading—but completely optional ones? What if the descriptors were creative and interesting enough to get students to give it a…
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What went right?
The things that go wrong get the most attention. That makes sense, because somebody needs to correct them. The problem happens when the things that go wrong get all of the attention. You may even start to only notice things going wrong. Focus on the things that didn’t go wrong—the things that went right. When…
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Open ears, open mind
For some reason, I’ve found myself listening to less music and fewer podcasts. I’ll often just leave the house or office and just walk. When I eat lunch or dinner, I’m just eating. While this can feel boring some days, it also feels like something is happening in my brain. I listen to the sounds…
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Spare time
Today, I came across a book entitled The Spare-Time Book: A Practical Guide to Adventure. The foreword was by Roger Bannister, who used his spare time training. He eventually became the first person to run a mile in under four minutes. It was a helpful reminder to my judge aspect—my inner critic—that at some point,…