Instead of wondering when your next vacation is, maybe you should set up a life you don’t need to escape from.
You are not your resume, you are your work.
At least at first, the new thing is rarely as good as the old thing was. If you need the alternative to be better than the status quo from the very start, you’ll never begin.
Your biggest failure is the thing you dreamed of contributing but didn’t find the guts to do.
Don’t save the canary. Fix the coal mine.
All great programmers learn the same way. They poke the box. They code something and see what the computer does. They change it and see what the computer does. They repeat the process again and again until they figure out how the box works.
Seeing, despite the name, isn’t merely visual.
If you can raise money, you’re never going to have trouble getting a job.
I’ve found that giving gifts is transformative. It makes me better. It clarifies my thinking and allows me to do better work.
I feel like I’m treating people as I’d like to be treated.
Making an average pitch to average people, or having an average gala for average people isn’t going to scale anymore. You’ve got to find the people who care. Those people are worth all of your time.
Great boss is challenging people in the right way. Leading, not managing. Supporting them by giving them both a platform they can count on and expectations they can stretch for.
The only reason to buy a paper book any longer is to own it and cherish it and remember it and tell a story about it.
The competitive advantages the marketplace demands is someone more human, connected, and mature. Someone with passion and energy, capable of seeing things as they are and negotiating multiple priorities as she makes useful decisions without angst. Flexible in the face of change, resilient in the face of confusion. All of these attributes are choices, not talents, and all of them are available to you.
The secret of being wrong isn’t to avoid being wrong! The secret is being willing to be wrong. The secret is realizing that wrong isn’t fatal. The only thing that makes people and organizations great is their willingness to be not great along the way. The desire to fail on the way to reaching a bigger goal is the untold secret of success.
We drink the can, not the beverage.
The easiest thing is to react. The second easiest thing is to respond. But the hardest thing is to initiate.
In your career, even more than for a brand, being safe is risky. The path to lifetime job security is to be remarkable.
Write like you talk. Often.
When our name is on a project, our ego pushes us over the hump and drives us to do even better work.