The YouTube video maker gets more out of making a video than you get out of watching it.
We long to connect, all of us. We long to be noticed, to be cared for, to matter. Generosity is the invisible salve on our wound of loneliness, one that benefits both sides, over and over again.
The devil doesn’t need an advocate. The brave need supporters, not critics.
If failure isn’t an option, then success isn’t either. Success is just failure repeated until it works.
The easiest way to thrive as an outlier is to avoid being one. At least among your most treasured peers. Surround yourself with people in at least as much of a hurry, at least as inquisitive, at least as focused as you are.
Without people pushing against your quest to do something worth talking about, it’s unlikely to be worth the journey. Persist.
The only people who get paid what they’re worth are people who don’t follow the instruction book, who create art, who are innovative, who work without a map.
Everyone picks the best one when given a choice.
Taking delight in the journey takes confidence. It pushes the envelope of design.
Trust is precious and easily wasted, and guessing is a lousy foundation for future progress.
I’ll confess that I don’t watch the Olympics, but you’d have to be living under a rock to be unaware of the corruption and the expense. An amorphous organization with no transparency, unclear lines of responsibility, huge amounts of politics and a great deal of unearned power.
Decide, before you start, that you’re going to change three things about what you do all day at work. Then, as you’re reading, find the three things and do it. The goal of the reading, then, isn’t to persuade you to change, it’s to help you choose what to change.
Success comes from doing the hard part. When the hard part is all you’ve got, you’re more likely to do it. And this is precisely why it’s difficult to focus. Because focusing means acknowledging that you just signed up for the hard part.
Marketing tells a story that spreads. Sales overcomes the natural resistance to say yes.
Learn. Ceaselessly. Learn to code, to write persuasively, to understand new technologies, to bring out the best in your team, to find underused resources and to spot patterns.
Piracy is not the problem, obscurity is.
If you hear my idea but don’t believe it, that’s not your fault; it’s mine. If you see my new product but don’t buy it, that’s my failure, not yours. If you attend my presentation and you’re bored, that’s my fault too.
The mirror we hold up to the person next to us is one of the most important pictures she will ever see.
One way to work the system is to work the system. The other way is to refuse to work it.
I don’t think there’s a shortage of remarkable ideas. I think your business has plenty of great opportunities to do great things. Nope, what’s missing isn’t the ideas. It’s the will to execute them.