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On writing a newsletter about books
Every month, I recommend 3 books to nearly 2,000 people. This has been an extremely rewarding experience. I’ve met some really great people through this newsletter. Some of these friends even kindly tell me to pick a new topic. I’m aware that books are not the most catchy hook, and that I could probably grow…
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Contentions: Advocacy, ambassadorship, and relations
Amazon famously has an empty chair in each meeting, a quiet symbol that represents the customer. That’s not enough anymore. An empty chair won’t share a perspective or have a point of view. It won’t be able to tell you something you didn’t even know you didn’t know. That’s where people who work in advocacy,…
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World building
A decade ago, Donald Glover said, “You’ve got to build a bigger world. I’m not gonna make [just] an album; I’m gonna make an album, I’m gonna make the roll out dope, I’m gonna make the movie with it dope, I’m gonna make everything dope. I’m gonna make a world.” This approach is what led…
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Independence is a team sport
When you work in a team, you’re in a position where you’re frowned upon if you’re not a team player. You feel like you need to be a team player in order to get by. When you work as an independent, you don’t need to be a team player—you might not even have a team!…
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Put it out there
It’s good to shake things up and put your work on a public surface. Otherwise, it’s easy to forget that other people are experiencing your work too. It’s also good to ask questions early on if you’re stuck, and to let people know you need help with your work. The alternative—not asking—may feel better, and…
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Vision, practice, and spine
At his Substack, Austin Kleon suggests an alternative to having a creative vision: And this all sounds very inspiring — it really does pump you up! — but for much of my life, [having a vision] would have been almost useless advice, because I didn’t really see any of my career coming. There was no…
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“This is not important”
This is how procrastination outsmarts you. It tells you, “[This] is not important.” So you may hear statements like, “This isn’t the right time for me to be doing this.” It may sound like, “I shouldn’t be doing my administrative work right now, because planning for the upcoming quarter is more important.” That’s fine, and…
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Cliffhangers are cheap
I just watched two films that closed with incomplete stories: Across the Spiderverse and Fast X. I’m aware both are very different—the former was received very well, the latter was received as well as the other Fast movies—and I found both to be similarly frustrating experiences. Infinity Wars was probably the first blockbuster to pioneer…
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Documenting Config
My colleague Jenny and I have been busy documenting Config here at the new Figma blog, Shortcut. Because you can already watch many of the sessions here, we decided to approach it with an emphasis on the atmosphere and the experience.
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“I don’t have anything to say about this…”
I’m researching a topic that’s outside of my wheelhouse, with a character that’s outside of my wheelhouse. While it’s incredibly culturally relevant, and I’ve been studying, I can’t say I’ve developed a perspective on the topic yet. And yet, it still captures my attention. A truer statement is probably, “I haven’t done enough research on…