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Donald Glover, on productive gentleness
When Donald Glover asks himself, “What’s a good man to you?” he replies, “Someone who knows themselves. Who loves themselves. My father was really gentle with us. Physically and mentally. It felt radical at the time. I really miss him.” Similarly, when he’s recently asked what advice he’d leave with his kids (emphasis added): The…
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What my personal website and blog have done for me
As often happens, there was a great thread at Hacker News that inspired this post: 1. When I was 15, I started my first blog at Blogspot. (It’s still there!) It became a source of great fun and advertising money as a teenager. Because I wrote enthusiastically about technology, I eventually also met other people…
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“Luck” covers the outcomes we can’t explain
Peter Thiel defines luck: What I do think is that as a society we attribute too much to luck. Luck is like an atheistic word for God: we ascribe things to it that we don’t understand or don’t want to understand. As a venture capitalist, I think one of the most toxic things to do…
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Don’t make what you think other people want you to make
“What you really want to do is, when you make your videos, make sure you’re making them for yourself and it’s something you actually believe in—not a video that you’re doing because you think it will do good. Too many people make videos that they think will get views, but it’s not really in their…
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From fliers to billboards
Some conceptual artists work mostly with language and words. This includes Glenn Ligon, Barbara Kruger, and Jenny Holzer. (Lots more here!) Holzer was the most familiar to me; I came across her truisms in books, and also through her collaboration with Virgil Abloh in 2017. I recently found out that Holzer’s work didn’t start off…
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11 books that started as articles, speeches, or podcasts
For several years, I’ve kept a running tab of articles, speeches, or podcasts that have turned into books. It’s time to start publicizing it. This list is for you if you’ve ever considered—or longed!—to publish a book: start today, start small (by yourself!), and start with what you’ve got. A book is just a snapshot in…
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Contentions: Writing for yourself vs. writing for the reader
A writer at Farnam Street makes the case: Great writing requires you to position your idea in a way that will resonate with the reader. Average writers start with what they want to say without considering how it will land with the reader. Great writers understand the journey starts with what the reader desires. To…
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Extreme affirmations don’t work, compassion does
In “Positive Self-Statements Power for Some, Peril for Others,” authors Joanne V. Wood, W.Q. Elaine Perunovic, and John W. Lee write: When people with low self-esteem repeated the statement, ‘‘I’m a lovable person’’ (Study 2), or focused on ways in which this statement was true of them (Study 3), neither their feelings about themselves nor…
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Marc Eckō, on branding as religion
When I was a teenager, my friends and I were obsessed with the clothing brand, Eckō Unlimited. The brand’s founder, Marc Eckō, wrote a book entitled Unlabel, in which he introduces his perspective of branding: I am a brand, but I am not a label. My brand is Marc Eckō. You too are a brand.…
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The prediction machine
Neuroscience makes the case that the brain is capable of prediction. In Chatter, Ethan Kross writes, “The brain is a prediction machine that is constantly trying to help us navigate the world.” He references Andy Clark’s mental model of brains as predictive machines (more here at The New Yorker). There’s also Micha Heilbron’s work saying…