Don’t “keep in touch.” It drives busy people crazy. Treat e-mailing them as you would knocking on their door and interrupting dinner. Treat it that seriously and use it that sparingly.
Tim Ferris on How to Get Busy Influencers to Share Your Stuff
Emailing Busy People
Beauty
“Beauty is that in the presence of which we feel more alive.”
– John O’Donohue
The Art of Asking
“From what I’ve seen, it isn’t so much the act of asking that paralyzes us–it’s what lies beneath: the fear of being vulnerable, the fear of rejection, the fear of looking needy or weak. The fear of being seen as a burdensome member of the community instead of a productive one. It points, fundamentally, to our separation from one another.”
– Amanda Palmer
The Art of Asking; or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Let People Help
The First Principles Method
“I think it’s important to reason from first principles rather than by analogy. The normal way we conduct our lives is we reason by analogy. [With analogy] we are doing this because it’s like something else that was done, or it is like what other people are doing. [With first principles] you boil things down to the most fundamental truths…and then reason up from there.”
How Elon Musk Thinks: The First Principles Method
Raise Your Game
“When we raise our game aesthetically, we elevate it morally and spiritually as well.”
― Steven Pressfield
From the book Turning Pro.
Vivid Memorable Interactions
“… We can’t easily change the dominant narrative that people have about us, we certainly can’t do it by insisting that our customers or colleagues bring more nuance to the table.
Instead, we can do it through action. Vivid, memorable interactions are what people remember. Surprises and vivid action matter far more than we imagine, and we regularly underinvest in them.”
The dominant narrative, by Seth Godin
The Man In The Arena
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
– Theodore Roosevelt
Excerpt from “Citizenship In A Republic” speech
(Thanks for the reminder, Bre)
Letting Go
“When you let go of something you are holding onto, you make room for your destiny to move in.
When you let go, you must have faith.
Have faith in the process, trust that you are going to a place you are meant for, a place that might not make sense now but will make plenty of sense later. You will see that because this happened, that happened. And the order of it all, no matter how painful or beautiful, was exactly what it needed to be.”
Why You Need to Let Go of Attachment, by Lewis Homes
Design
“Design is all about building coherence between your constraints, your values, and your possibilities.”
– Ayse Birsel
(via)
Love For your Subject Matter
“What you need, above all else, is a love for your subject, whatever it is. You’ve got to be so deeply in love with your subject that when curve balls are thrown, when hurdles are put in place, you’ve got the energy to overcome them.”
– Neil deGrasse Tyson
Courage
“You will never do anything in this world without courage. It is the greatest quality of the mind next to honor.”
– Aristotle
(via)
Friendship
“Friendship is the dividend of gratitude that flows from an acknowledgement that one has offered something very valuable to someone: not a fancy present, but something even more precious, the key to one’s self-esteem and dignity.”
Creative Process
“The creative process is an escape from personality.”
-TS Eliot
(via)
On Hope and Cynicism
“Critical thinking without hope is cynicism. Hope without critical thinking is naïveté.”
– Maria Popova
From Maria’s post on Hope, Cynicism, and the Stories We Tell Ourselves
“Verschlimmbessern”
25. Verschlimmbessern (German): To accidentally make something worse in the process of attempting to mend or improve it. Multiple applications around computers, cake baking and relationships.
From this fascinating list of Untranslatable Words.
Courage
“. . . may you have the courage to listen to the voice of desire that disturbs you when you have settled for something safe.”
– John O’Donahue
Change
“… Action will bring the evidence to your doorstep.”
From one of Jenny Holzer’s ’15 Inflammatory Essays’.
Mattering is important
“…The work of a professional isn’t to recreate thrills. It’s to show up and do the work. To continue the journey you set out on a while ago. To make the change you seek to make in the universe.
Thrilling is fine. Mattering is more important.”
Begin
“Whatever you think you can do or believe you can do, begin it. Action has magic, grace and power in it.”
– Goethe
Can I Pick Your Brain?
1. Picking someone’s brain sounds like an entirely one-sided appeal.
2. There’s no such thing as a 15 minute call, or coffee, or meeting with someone you don’t really know.
3. Offer to come to them.A few words of advice to brain pickers, by Jason Fried
Important
“Nothing important comes with instructions.”
– James Richardson
Connection
“I define connection as the energy that exists between people when they feel seen, heard, and valued; when they can give and receive without judgment; and when they derive sustenance and strength from the relationship.”
― Brené Brown
Ambition
“Ambition, I have come to believe, is the most primal and sacred fundament of our being. To feel ambition and to act upon it is to embrace the unique calling of our souls. Not to act upon that ambition is to turn our backs on ourselves and on the reason for our existence.”
― Steven Pressfield
From the book Turning Pro.