“A talented but meek creative personality can never join the pantheon of the greats, because timidity leads to mediocrity.” – George Lois, Great Ad Man of the 20th Century Ever feel like you’re a voice in the wilderness? No matter how hard you try to spread your best ideas or work, nobody seems to be […]
Read More
I came across the work of consultant / Stanford Researcher BJ Fogg this week, and I think I’m in love. His lab studies what it takes for people to change behaviour, and in the past 20+ years, he and his team have discovered 3 requirements present across all behavioural changes: Trigger: A specific event or […]
Read More
Picture Sisyphus rolling his boulder up that hill every day. He knows what’s going to happen when he gets to the top, though maybe not exactly how. One way or another, that boulder is coming down again. There’s nothing he can do about it. The momentum’s too strong once he’s reached the apex. Some would […]
Read More
You may have noticed that little blue progress bar in the top right corner of my pages of late. I’m working on a new writing project called Spendshift — a series of lazy hacks to help people free up time and money. Because I think I can hit 50% completion on the project today, I […]
Read More
Get it out of your head by putting it in physical space. Print it off. Map it. Draw a picture. Do some automatic writing. Lay it all out. Take a step back. Ponder the patterns. Do anything but sit and anxiously let it bounce around in your skull. When we’re working on something, we load […]
Read More
In video games, I’m the hero. I put in effort, and rewards come out. Achievement unlocked. Ding! In my brain, my reward centers go “ahhhhhhh.” They say, “Hey, you’re doing a great job, so have these endorphins.” In my life, nothing happens, so I’ve learned to say: Feel the fire instead. When life bites you, the […]
Read More
There’s this incredible scene at towards the end of Napoleon Dynamite, where the scorned and dejected protagonist throws off the shackles of his miserable high-school existence and boogies like a blistering god: During this epic show, the haters hate. Don and Summer, the school’s grimy alpha pair, give their usual dismissive smirks, but on Napoleon […]
Read More
Beloved body/mind-hacker Tim Ferriss recently shared a blog post about his morning journaling ritual. He bashes out whatever comes to mind for about 5-minutes to record all of his doubts, neuroses, concerns, etc. In the post, he contemplates two possibilities for the purpose of this exercise: I’m trying to figure things out, and this might […]
Read More
In a word, don’t. There’s a myth out there that when you’re applying for jobs, pursuing creative projects, or trying to create an audience for your work, you must learn to “fight through” the pain of endless rejection. All the greats do it. They pay their dues. You must learn to pick yourself up after […]
Read More
Yesterday I made a spreadsheet. The result? Digital carnage. There’s nothing quite like a ruthless digital hack-and-slash to get the blood pumping. Using the Pareto principle, commonly known as the 80/20 rule, I had a good, honest look at which of my digital accounts were actually useful, and which were leeches on my time and […]
Read More