Groking Laughter
“I had been told that a ‘funny’ thing is a thing of goodness. It isn’t. Not ever is it funny to the person it happens to. The goodness is in the laughing. I grok it is a bravery… and a sharing… against pain and sorrow and defeat.”
Mann on Crap Days
“That’s life, pal. Deal.”
The Mann on Priorities
“Once you see what’s really there – once you know about an idea or a thing or a person or whatever that you’d reject 10,000 other things to protect and nurture — you’ve found your priority.”
Paul Graham on The Unpleasant Jobs
“Another related line you often hear is that not everyone can do work they love—that someone has to do the unpleasant jobs. Really? How do you make them? In the US the only mechanism for forcing people to do unpleasant jobs is the draft, and that hasn’t been invoked for over 30 years. All we can do is encourage people to do unpleasant work, with money and prestige.”
Paul Graham, emphasis mine
Drucker on What to Want
“Don’t tell me you had a wonderful meeting with me. Tell me what you’re going to do on Monday that’s different.”
Peter Drucker
A good reminder that it’s not about your thing, it’s about what your thing is for.
Jerry Colonna on What The Entrepreneur Creates
“You take that underlying view that work is somehow supposed to create something more meaningful and you marry that with the entrepreneurial-delusional state and you get this really interesting stew of people who want to change the world ultimately because they want to make it a better place… because they want to create more meaning.”
Seth on The Rest of The Time
“The rest of the time, it’s about shipping, motivating, leading, connecting, envisioning and engaging. So that’s what we worked on.”
A Common Future Regret of Men
“All of the men I nursed deeply regretted spending so much of their lives on the treadmill of a work existence.”
Paul Graham on Lions and Work
“I suspect that working for oneself feels better to humans in much the same way that living in the wild must feel better to a wide-ranging predator like a lion. Life in a zoo is easier, but it isn’t the life they were designed for.”
Paul Graham on The Recipe
“You may have expected recipes for coming up with startup ideas, and instead I’m telling you that the key is to have a mind that’s prepared in the right way. But disappointing though it may be, this is the truth.”