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The real thing
If you want to write a book, write the book. Don’t build an audience. Don’t look for an agent. Don’t write a proposal. Don’t look for a more prominent person to ghostwrite for. Write the book. Do the real thing. When you can’t do the real thing—you’re not well-trained or qualified enough—get as close to…
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To break through perfectionism, take a small step in any direction
In Hidden Potential, Adam Grant writes (I’ve reformatted for a better list read): In their quest for flawless results, research suggests that perfectionists tend to get three things wrong. In Adversity for Sale, Jeezy writes: I always tell people when you’re feeling stressed out, lost, and overwhelmed, you’re better off taking a small step in…
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Brain Age
Nintendo has sold over 35 million copies of Brain Age. (All of these people also had to play the game on a console.) Brain Age was based on the bestselling books, No wo Kitaeru Otona no Keisan Doriru and No wo Kitaeru Otona no Onyomi Doriru, which sold over 2 million copies and were authored…
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Two kinds of truths
Just a few years before I wrote this, WeWork was valued at $47 billion and raised $1.5 billion in cash. That’s a whopping amount of cash; to put it into perspective, several years before that, Meta had acquired Instagram for $1 billion. Yesterday, WeWork declared bankruptcy. In The Snowball, Alice Schroeder writes, “[Benjamin] Graham used…
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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…