How Louis C.K. Does so Much

“I learned that sharks sleep parts of their brain, like rolling blackouts; they can’t fall asleep because they can’t stop moving or they’ll suffocate. So they sleep sections of their brain at a time. So I do kind of a version of that, where I shut down brain centers. I literally tell myself, ‘Don’t logistically problem-solve for the next three hours, but you can talk to folks.’ Driving my kid home from school — ‘don’t think about all the professional things you have to do.’”

Louis C.K.

Stephen King on Two Kinds of Novelists

“I think novelists come in two types, and that includes the sort of fledgling novelist I was by 1970. Those who are bound for the more literary or “serious” side of the job examine every possible subject in light of this question: What would writing this sort of story mean to me? Those whose destiny (or ka, if you like) is to include the writing of popular novels are apt to ask a very different one: What would writing this sort of story mean to others? The “serious” novelist is looking for answers and keys to the self; the “popular” novelist is looking for an audience. Both kinds of writer are equally selfish. I’ve known a good many, and will set my watch and warrant upon it.”

Stephen King, intro to The Gunslinger

Aim For The Medium Chill (Not The Big Chill)

“There will always be a More and Better just beyond our reach, no matter how high we climb. We could always have a little more money and a few more choices. But as we see it, we don’t need to work harder to get more money to have more choices because we already made our choice. We chose our family and our friends and our place. Like any life ours comes with trade-offs, but on balance it’s a good life, we’ve already got it, and we’re damn well going to enjoy it.”

The Medium Chill

I liked this article. It put these thoughts in the right order… not too cute, not too brash.

It’s a struggle for me to walk this line between ambition — the call to a better me, a higher thing — and what we know is the stuff of happiness — being in the now, being grateful for what you have, focusing on relationships.

I struggle to not put “settling” in that last bit. It feels a bit like settling. “Settling” feels a bit like giving up.

So I like the way this guy makes The Medium Chill feel a little less like giving up.

A while ago I had an existential crisis. Like, literally in the park with my son on a shitty Portland day while I recorded an audio note about how nothing matters and I should just become a janitor and stop trying so hard.

I thought through the muck and landed on this as my new mandate: make some people’s lives better in small but meaningful ways.

That’s my medium chill mandate.

Richard Saul Wurman on Selling Discovery (Not Expertise)

“You sell your expertise, you have a limited repertoire. You sell your ignorance, it’s an unlimited repertoire. [Eames] was selling his ignorance and his desire to learn about a subject, and the journey of him not knowing to knowing was his work.”

Richard Saul Wurman

Don’t compete on right/better. Compete on joy/goodness. Don’t be the best designer or the best surfer. Be a good designer and a happy surfer.

This is by far the best quote I’ve heard about this. Your expertise will always have a limited supply in comparison to your ignorance. Acknowledge that, and make your learning – your discovery – a contagious joy.

Marco on Craft Porn

“Carpenters who work every day with their craft don’t get magazines about hammers.”

Marco Arment

Thanks to Mumford’s sons and other “look at the cabin we made our music in and our evening bonfires and how close we live to the earth and each other and how hand-made everything is and oh yea I made this jam myself” kinds of things, we’re all getting a bit too precious about “craft” and “work.”

I’m guilty too. It feels good to have a name for my work now, an industry. And it feels good to invest my life in a career direction (as opposed to living project to project).

But watch yourself. It’s easy to over-adorn and over-glorify the “job” and what the “job” means and your role in the whole universe thing — especially when you’ve got on suspenders and big ol’ work boots.

Making your own jam is cool. Making music with your friends in cabins is cool. Taking your job seriously is cool. Geeking out about the details is cool. Being precious about your work, being pretentious about what you “do” for a living, making porn out of regular ol’ good and hard work is not cool.

Atul Gawande on Not Settling for Average

“Except, of course, there is. Somehow, what troubles people isn’t so much being average as settling for it. Everyone knows that averageness is, for most of us, our fate. And in certain matters—looks, money, tennis—we would do well to accept this. But in your surgeon, your child’s pediatrician, your police department, your local high school? When the stakes are our lives and the lives of our children, we expect averageness to be resisted. And so I push to make myself the best. If I’m not the best already, I believe wholeheartedly that I will be. And you expect that of me, too. Whatever the next round of numbers may say.”

Atul Gawande

It’s a long read, and you won’t know what it’s about till about 75% through, but there are a number of juicy things to think about in here.

One that sticks with me is the story of the doctor who, with all the same research and tactics, does much better than his peers in treating Cystic Fibrosis. The difference was his tenacity, all-in-ness, dedication to seeing the improvement… even if it’s the difference between 99.95% and 99.5%.

Thx @genuinechris for the recommendation.

Louis C.K. on Farts & Being Snobbish

“Farts are — I just refuse to be snobbish about certain shit with comedy. You know, farts come out of your ass and they make a fucking trumpet sound. That shit smelling gas comes out of your ass and it makes a toot sound. What the fuck is not funny about that? It’s perfect, it’s a perfect joke. It has all the elements.”

Louis C.K.

James Altucher on How to be an Entrepreneur

“Some people can say, ‘well, I’m just not an entrepreneur.’

This is not true. Everyone is an entrepreneur. The only skills you need to be an entrepreneur: an ability to fail, an ability to have ideas, to sell those ideas, to execute on those ideas, and to be persistent so even as you fail you learn and move onto the next adventure. Or be an entrepreneur at work. An ‘entre-ployee.’ Take control of who you report to, what you do, what you create. Or start a business on the side. Deliver some value, any value, to anybody, to somebody, and watch that value compound into a career.”

James Altucher

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