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Participation trophies
In The Art of Possibility, Roz and Ben Zander write, “Enrolling is not about forcing, cajoling, tricking, bargaining, pressuring, or guilt-tripping someone into doing something your way. Enrollment is the art and practice of generating a spark of possibility for others to share.” A generous assumption of why participation trophies exist: it balances the all-consuming…
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The only way to change someone’s mind
“Getting a prospect to admit their “mistake” borders on the impossible. All you’ll do is irritate or antagonize your prospect. That is not the way to persuade them to buy from you.… No, the prospect won’t change their mind, but they will be delighted to make a new decision, based on new information,” writes Zig…
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Life is a team sport
When I interviewed Annie Duke, we discussed the writing process for her first book, Thinking In Bets. Duke had made writing a team sport, firstly by recruiting a friend with a Juris Doctor degree, who was also a writer, to be her editor—outside of her editor at her publisher. This friend helped serve as a…
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Do more, think less
Gapingvoid recently published a piece entitled, “Do more, think less.” It touches on one of the premises of Creative Doing, which is that new insights emerge from doing, not merely thinking. The phrase was drawn from a phrase I mentioned in an episode of Infinite Loops I did with Jim O’Shaughnessy. Jim introduced the phrase,…
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The 451 day project
I wrote a guest post at #The100DayProject, one of my favorite daily creative challenges. I just plugged the dates into a counter, I’ve published a post every day for 451 days! 🤯
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Getting to know a business
If you’ve ever wanted to start a company, or write a book, or make something meaningful, it helps to go through the process as the person who’s paying for it. If you’re starting a company, figure out your potential competitors and see if you can work with them as a customer. If you want to…
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“What would you recommend?”
Whether it’s selecting an item at a new restaurant, or mapping out the 10 year vision for their business, the other person—your boss, your customer, your client—doesn’t always know what they want. They’re waiting for you to tell them. That’s when preparation meets opportunity; it’s your chance to provide them with the information they need,…
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Contentions: Names set expectations
What’s the difference between a book, an ebook, a digital book, a pamphlet, a booklet, a brochure, and a bulletin? By strict definition, they share a lot of common traits. They are all documents that hold words on them. The main difference is what each word leads a person to expect. For example, a book…
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People make plans, and nature laughs
Resisting nature is not constructive; it’s always best to roll with it. You can plan around nature, too. It’s not going to stop laughing. You can choose to scream at it, worry yourself to death about it, try to make sense of it, laugh with it, or to sit beside it.
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Play to your strengths
It’s one thing to find a strategy, tactic, or best practice that worked for someone else. The internet is bursting with people sharing what works for them. It’s an entirely different thing to find the practice that works for you. You are the most important factor in how the things you do turn out. For…