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When prestige narrows horizons
Patrick Bringley writes about his time working at The New Yorker in All the Beauty in the World: It took me almost three years to grasp an unwelcome paradox. If I were working a less “impressive” job, I would be scribbling my thoughts down in obscurity, free to take big swings at whatever topic inspired…
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The pinnacle of success
“You have reached the pinnacle of success as soon as you become uninterested in money, compliments, or publicity.” Orlando Aloysius Battista, via MoneyZen by Manisha Thakor
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Dealing in hope
One can lead a nation only by helping it see a bright outlook. A leader is a dealer in hope. Napoléon Bonaparte (via Prehistoric by Alex Wong)
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Writing is transference of energy
When you’re editing, consider how the order of information can shift the energy of the work. You can do this starting at the most zoomed out: at a section level, then paragraph level, then sentence level, then individual word level. Some sections will need more love than others. You’ll need to cut some turns of…
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Finding echoes of other people in yourself
So I’d say, to the extent I can, that the image came in parts, and congealed when I started writing. For me, creating a character is like acting. I have to imagine being them. Empathy is about finding echoes of another person in yourself. And when I imagined being the boy in this story, these…
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Process leads to purpose
A couple of days ago, Creative Doing was featured in Readwise’s newsletter, Wisereads. It excerpts a passage from the introduction: Finding my creative purpose involved letting go of every impulse and habit that made me successful at my work projects, and shifting my focus away from results into the process. Process is about consistently making…
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Favors balance out
A few years ago, Ryan Holiday shared a lesson he learned from Tim Ferriss: When Tim’s blog was just starting to take off, I emailed him and asked him if he might include a link back to mine. I laid out this clear case as to why — the things I’d done for him in…
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“Happy-when” people
Shane Parrish writes in Clear Thinking: Running on the hedonic treadmill only turns us into what I call “happy-when” people—those who think they’ll be happy when something happens. For example, we’ll be happy when we get the credit we deserve, or happy when we make a bit more money, or happy when we find that…
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It’s just business
A little over a year ago, I wrote a guest post for Dan Runcie at Trapital unpacking how Pusha T positioned his career for longevity (and I wrote about it again here). The early years of Push’s career had high highs and low lows, particularly when he and his brother No Malice were stuck in…
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Stand up
Steve Jobs discusses hiring people, in an interview for In the Company of Giants (via the Steve Jobs archive): Over time, my digging in during an interview gets more precise. For example, many times in an interview I will purposely upset someone: I’ll criticize their prior work. I’ll do my homework, find out what they…