-
Departure eyes
One of the best—and most bittersweet—aspects of travel is not just arriving in a new place, but departing a familiar one. Oftentimes, departing a place you call home. It’s an occasion that brings out the flavor of home. You appreciate buildings you walked past without a second glance. The most mundane details grow more loveable,…
-
The Brilliance and branding
Blogs are still an incredible source of joy for me. That’s why I do this everyday! I recently rediscovered The Brilliance, which I first came across in 2009 during a visual computer science lecture, run by Benjamin Edgar, Chuck Anderson, and the late Virgil Abloh. I’ve been diving into its archives from the late 2000s.…
-
Work isn’t meant to be escaped
Entrepreneur Curtis Jackson, also known as recording artist 50 Cent, writes in Hustle Harder, Hustle Smarter: One of the most important realizations I came to early in my business career is that I’m running through an endless tunnel. What I mean by that is I came to understand that there’s no “happily ever after.” No…
-
Katsushika Hokusai, drawing on the floor
Yesterday, I visited the Sumida Hokusai Museum. One thing that stood out to me was his rather modest studio; there was a replica in the museum. Hokusai drew on the ground! Creativity is not about the tools, it’s not about breaking through constraints; it’s about working with what you’ve got. I didn’t take a photo…
-
Contentions: Stop querying searches, and get out there
Search isn’t great for discovery—for helping to answer unknown unknowns. In other words, you’re not going to find things you didn’t even know you were looking for. Sometimes, the best way—the only way—to discover what you’re looking for is to actually go into the physical world. Get out of your chair. Open books and magazines.…
-
Breaking the curse of perspective
It’s so easy to spot other people’s blind spots, and it’s incredibly difficult to spot your own. Sometimes, that’s because we’re effectively blind to it; our perspective of the world doesn’t allow us to see what’s really happening. Other times, it’s because we don’t want to see it; our perspective of the world protects us…
-
Sold out
When you know that you’re not able to get something, you want to know why. Even when you had absolutely no interest in the first place. Scarcity is extremely effective. (It’s the fundamental principle of hype culture.) If the seller ran out of a product, that must mean a lot of people bought it, which…
-
Replace rankings
The leaderboard is one of the most common diagrams we use to measure the best and the worst. Whether it’s, “Top five, dead or alive,” or “Stack ranking,” we use rankings as a way to make decisions. Unfortunately, with letter grades and awards, we’re also the constant subject of rankings; so much so that we…
-
Pulled through the gates
In order to preserve their livelihood, a gatekeeper’s job is to protect the business. They need to filter out real business opportunities, and good people, from all of the other chaos in the world. If you’re a creator, you want to get pulled in through a gate—and corresponding gatekeeper—by someone that the gatekeeper already trusts.…
-
Less is a practice
Throughout life, we’re taught to pick up more stuff. I mean this not only in the literal sense of buying products, but also in the sense of work. Exploring and picking up more opportunities. Exploiting current opportunities more. Meeting more people. It’s easy to say that you’re going to do less, which seems to be…