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Pay to play vs. paid to play
At a conference, one person will pay $20,000 to get on stage and speak. Another person doing the same thing will get paid $20,000. What does the second person have that the first person doesn’t? There are at least three things: In other words, the organizers of the conference recognize the second person as a…
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No optimism, no business
“It is your optimism, your belief, that created the shop and that keeps it alive. Should you lose that, then the business is done,” Peter Miller writes in Shopkeeping. He opened his self-titled bookstore in Seattle in 1979. If you read Peter’s book, you’ll quickly find that shopkeeping is a craft just like any other…
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Desire vs. drive
A desire passes. “Oh, that is so cool,” you say. A strong desire may even consume your mind for a few days, but eventually you forget about it. A drive is more like a compulsion. “I need to do that,” or “It has to be this way,” and you can’t stop thinking about it for…
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The two wolves
Nearly a decade ago, I shared a parable at Lifehacker: The native american grandfather tells his grandson that there are two wolves inside of him, fighting for control. One wolf, is the wolf of love, peace, and kindness. The other wolf is a wolf of greed, hatred, and corruption. The grandson asks, “Which wolf will…
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The sign vs. the signal
The person running a motel can hang a sign saying, “luxury hotel,” at the front. That doesn’t mean anything if nothing about the motel changes. The description doesn’t match the product, and people will quickly see through that. The person running a luxury hotel doesn’t have to hang a sign saying anything. They can just…
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Short-term vs. long-term
Two different 18-year-olds, from two different families, are about to enter college. Then, tragedy: both have one parent leave the family. They each have two younger siblings they need to raise. One decides the right thing to do is not go to college and help their remaining parent raise their siblings. They are stuck doing…
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Rejection calibration
If you don’t think you’ll write up a successful application, you might choose to barely show up. You feel like the odds are against you. Why put the effort in if you’re not going to get what you want, anyway? If you think somebody doesn’t like you, you might behave like you don’t like them.…
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“I don’t accept that…”
There’s a really great letter that Vincent van Gogh wrote in response to criticism from Anthon van Rappard. Van Gogh makes it clear that he doesn’t accept Van Rappard’s critique calling the totality of Van Gogh’s work totally extremely weak, “The work in question, painting the peasants, is such laborious work that the extremely weak…
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Foresight is not essential
James Naismith invented basketball when he was really just trying to keep a bunch of rowdy students busy indoors during a blizzard. One day, he saw a boy in the gym tossing a ball toward the basket, picking it up, and tossing it again. An hour later, he passed by the gym again and saw…
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Reality catches up
A good plan is preparation—or at least, preliminary work—for dealing with reality. Sometimes, you may want to avoid planning, and take a more spontaneous stance to your work. For example, if you find yourself inspired or in the zone, you may want to clear your calendar of your other obligations—or prevent those events from accumulating…