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“You don’t need to get comfortable before you can practice your skills”
Adam Grant shares a learning key from polyglots—people who learned several languages—in Hidden Potential: You don’t have to wait until you’ve acquired an entire library of knowledge to start to communicate. Your mental library expands as you communicate. When I asked Sara Maria what it takes to begin, she said she no longer waits to…
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“You want to feel a gap between what you expected and what actually happened”
In Same as Ever, Morgan Housel dedicates a chapter to expectations. He writes: What generates the emotion is the big gap between expectations and reality. When you think of it like that, you realize how powerful expectations are. They can make a celebrity feel miserable and a destitute family feel amazing. It’s astounding. Everyone, everywhere,…
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“That’s too bad, but nothing for me to be ashamed of”
Raymond Carver, who worked many jobs (including as a janitor, and a textbook editor), writes: I have friends who’ve told me they had to hurry a book because they needed the money, their editor or their wife was leaning on them or leaving them – something, some apology for the writing not being very good.…
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“My record sales ain’t much as theirs, and we still ride the same coupes”
There is a path to creative work that doesn’t require record sales, relevance, or any financial pressure; it’s a path of longevity. In Push’s case, the path works because he doesn’t make money with his music; he does it through his brand partnerships and his businesses. These outside streams of income keep the pressure off…
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Three quotes on ordinariness
“We think that if only we get the big things right, everything will magically fall into place. If we choose to marry the right person, it’ll all be okay. If we choose the right career, we’ll be happy. If we pick the right investment, we’ll be rich. This wisdom is, at best, partially true. You…
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Contentions: Put a price on your marketing
There’s a reason to make people pay for your work. While profitability would be nice, it’s not the main goal. People being willing to pay for your work suggests brand engagement; you’ve made something people want. It also encourages them to actually use the thing. Consider the Michelin Guide, one of the original pieces of…
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Positioning and patience
Maybe your positioning isn’t setting you up to be patient. There is a lot of power in focusing on the long-term. Jeff Bezos says to Wired: If everything you do needs to work on a three-year time horizon, then you’re competing against a lot of people. But if you’re willing to invest on a seven-year…
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Seth Godin, on expectations
In my research process for the next book, I’ve put together a long list of people who write about expectations. Seth stands out; he’s written several posts on the topic this year.
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The one line paradox
Sometimes it’s much easier to write 1,000 words on a topic than to write 10. As Mark Twain writes, “I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.” Or as Arnold Kling writes, “When I finish writing a book review, I will often say to myself, ‘There! Now…
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Endurance
The ability to stick it out is criminally underrated. Not only will you outlast the competition, you will also gain an experience that demonstrates your ability—and bring it to the next thing you do.