Parker Palmer on “Your” Life
One day ask me whether what I have done is my life.”
Jeffrey Veen on Passion, Talent & Value
I am hesitant to say, ‘Follow your passion,’ because I don’t believe in that. It has to be something that you are also good at and that the world finds valuable.”
Paul Graham on the Importance of Commitment
Everyone who deals with startups knows how important commitment is, so if they sense you’re ambivalent, they won’t give you much attention. If you lack commitment, you’ll just find that for some mysterious reason good things happen to your competitors but not to you. If you lack commitment, it will seem to you that you’re unlucky.”
Paul Graham on Looking vs. Thinking
As Richard Feynman said, the imagination of nature is greater than the imagination of man. You’ll find more interesting things by looking at the world than you could ever produce just by thinking.”
Alan Watts on Meditation
We are sick with fascination for the useful tools of names and numbers, of symbols, signs, conceptions and ideas. Meditation is therefore the art of suspending verbal and symbolic thinking for a time, somewhat as a courteous audience will stop talking when a concert is about to begin.”
Alan Watts
How Stress Keeps us Calm
As a neuroscientist, despite my initial incredulity, I came to realize that yoga works not because the poses are relaxing, but because they are stressful. It is your attempts to remain calm during this stress that create yoga’s greatest neurobiological benefit.”
Brad Feld on the Most Challenging Thing
“The most challenging thing for a young entrepreneur is to think long-term.
When you are 22 years old, it’s hard to think in 22-year increments since that’s as long as you’ve been alive. But it’s really important to view your life as an entrepreneur as a long journey that consists of many short-term cycles. It’s relatively easy to focus on the short-term cycle, such as the 90 days of an accelerator program; it’s a lot harder to think about the next decade and how what you are doing today impacts where you want to be ten years from now.”
The concept of the long haul has been bouncing around in me for a while. But no one’s made me think about it quite the way Mr. Feld has.
For more from him (and on this concept) check out this interview. This was my introduction to Mr. Feld… I became an instant groupie.
Jerry Colonna on Reality
Face reality.”
What a phenomenal interview. Mr. Colonna can feel a little on the precious side at times but the insights and point of view he brings are gutsy and pungent for me. Remind me of this in a year.
I’ve been listening to this show for about 30 episodes or so. At first I couldn’t stand Calcannis. That’s many peoples’ knee-jerk reaction to him. But he’s growing on me. I think there’s a little more under the surface than I thought.
And I certainly applaud the guy for getting on such great founders and sharing these conversations. I’ve gleaned a ton from them.
Thoughts on Scaffolding, Completed Work & The Creative Process
The first third of every project is building scaffolding. Don’t fear waste. Don’t fear redundancy. Don’t fear inefficiency. Yet.”
The balance between scaffolding and the finished product is tricky.
I recently shipped a large project (the scaffolding of which is pictured above). It’s a training course on the essentials of website design for people who who are building their own business. It’s that rare connection of “something I care a great deal about” + “something I know a great deal about.” (There’s a video from the course and more about info about it here).
Throughout the project I moved back and forth between scaffolding (notes on a card or post-it note) and polished words a few times as the structure of the thing emerged over time.
I’d create the bones and say, “yea, that’s good.”
And then I’d write it out and stumble on something that was unclear. I’d work to push through the ambiguity and realize I need to restructure the scaffolding a bit.
This back and forth is a bit harrowing. There’s (more…)
George Lois on Blurbs & Brands
If you have to depend on blurbs to have people buy your magazine then you’ve got a piece of shit! You don’t have a brand!”
The same goes for blog post headlines. Note to self: care less about “viral headline lessons.” Care less about short term “conversion” and more about the long term relationship with your audience. Stand for something. Be something. Have conviction. Build a brand.