Conventional wisdom is that you should find a job that matches your passion. I think this is backwards.
We sell feelings, status, and connection, not tasks or stuff.
Great work is not created for everyone. If it were, it would be average work.
Here’s an assignment for you: Write it down. Write down under what circumstances you’re willing to quit. And when. And then stick with it.
When you hire amazing people and give them freedom, they do amazing stuff. And.
You do not equal the project. Criticism of the project is not criticism of you.
I spend 95% of my time persuading people to take action and just 5% of the time on the recipes.
The secret of being wrong isn’t to avoid being wrong! The secret is being willing to be wrong.
It’s Almost Impossible to Overinvest in Becoming the Market Leader.
The purity of the message makes it even more remarkable. It’s easy to tell someone about the Leaning Tower. Much harder to tell them about the Pantheon in Rome. So, even though the Pantheon is beautiful, breathtaking, and important, it sees 1 percent of the crowds that the harder-to-get-to Tower in Pisa gets.
When in doubt, assume that people will act according to their current irrational urges, ignoring information that runs counter to their beliefs, trading long-term for short-term benefits and most of all, being influenced by the culture they identify with.
Generosity generates income. This works whether you are selling paintings or innovation or a service. Linus.
Everything gets easier when you walk away from the hubris of everyone. Your work is not for everyone. It’s only for those who signed up for the journey.
Our society is struggling because during times of change, the very last people you need on your team are well-paid bureaucrats, note takers, literalists, manual readers, TGIF laborers, map followers, and fearful employees.
Seeing clearly means that you’re smart enough to know when a project is doomed, or brave enough to persevere when your colleagues are fleeing for the hills. Abandoning your worldview in order to try on someone else’s is the first step in being able to see things as they are.
It’s not an effort contest, it’s an art contest. As customers, we care about ourselves, about how we feel, about whether a product or service or play or interaction changed us for the better. Where it’s made or how it’s made or how difficult it was to make is sort of irrelevant. That’s why emotional labor is so much more valuable than physical labor. Emotional labor changes the recipient, and we care about that. Soft.
When you are leading a tribe, a tribe that you belong to, the benefits increase, the work gets easier, and the results are more obvious. That’s the best reason to overcome the fear.
We hire for perfect, we manage for perfect, we measure for perfect, and we reward for perfect. So why are we surprised that people spend their precious minutes of self-directed, focused work time trying to achieve perfect? The problem is simple: Art is never defect-free. Things that are remarkable never meet spec, because that would make them standardized, not worth talking about. Rough.
The craftsman and the artist say, “Here, I made this.” The workingman is asked to follow instructions.
If you took organic chemistry in college, you’ve experienced the Dip. Academia doesn’t want too many unmotivated people to attempt medical school, so they set up a screen. Organic chemistry is the killer class, the screen that separates the doctors from the psychologists. If you can’t handle organic chemistry, well, then, you can’t go to med school.