You want to kick some ass with a product? Want to build a brand that makes money and lasts a long time? Want to build a legacy your kids can inherit? Just discover a true (and good) answer to this one question: Who are you and what do you stand for in the world. (more…)
It’s football season. I’m not much of an NFL fan, though my family has always supported the Niners through thick and thin, but I am into another kind of football.
I put up a video yesterday about John Cleese on creativity, and speaking of John Cleese, here’s a funny lil’ bit about the difference between American football and the sport we call “soccer.”
Very interesting John Cleese video on creativity. Here’s some notes:
An amazing video, this. I encourage you to full-screen it in HD… because you will be different afterwards.
Viktor Frankl wrote Man’s Search For Meaning, an incredible book. Simply incredible (more on the book below). Here is a video of Frankl speaking at a conference in Toronto in 1972. It’s simple and humble, but when he made his point it was a paradigm shift for me.
From Amazon.com:
Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl is among the most influential works of psychiatric literature since Freud. The book begins with a lengthy, austere, and deeply moving personal essay about Frankl’s imprisonment in Auschwitz and other concentration camps for five years, and his struggle during this time to find reasons to live. The second part of the book, called “Logotherapy in a Nutshell,”describes the psychotherapeutic method that Frankl pioneered as a result of his experiences in the concentration camps. Freud believed that sexual instincts and urges were the driving force of humanity’s life; Frankl, by contrast, believes that man’s deepest desire is to search for meaning and purpose. Frankl’s logotherapy, therefore, is much more compatible with Western religions than Freudian psychotherapy. This is a fascinating, sophisticated, and very human book. At times, Frankl’s personal and professional discourses merge into a style of tremendous power. “Our generation is realistic, for we have come to know man as he really is,”Frankl writes. “After all, man is that being who invented the gas chambers of Auschwitz; however, he is also that being who entered those gas chambers upright, with the Lord’s Prayer or the Shema Yisrael on his lips.”
This is an interesting presentation… feels a little too ethereal in some parts, but the main point I think stands:
If your business will be successful with the masses, it must be successful with the early adopters… In order to be successful with the early adopters, you must sell them the why not the what
I also like his little concentric circle thingy…
Seth Godin: Quieting the Lizard Brain from 99% on Vimeo.
Maybe this is all the Seth Godin you’ll need for a while…
Gary V is normally a bit too much for me. But I like this video a lot. You do too. Be honest.
Theres a bunch of cool stuff Sendhil Mullainathan talks about in the video below... I only want to highlight one point he makes. It's about BMW wanting to advertise the safety of their cars.
Car safety adverts are normally about car chasis getting slammed into walls in slow motion, or, in other words, the "you'll survive wrecks in our cars" message. BMW opted for the different "our cars keep you out of accidents" message. It's not necessarily brilliant, just a different angle on the topic.