Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Basically you create your experience through your beliefs about yourself and the nature of reality. Another way to understand this is to realize that you create your experiences through your expectations.
If you don't know how it works, find out. If you're not sure if it will work, try it. If it doesn't make sense, play with it until it does. If it's not broken, break it. If it might not be true, find out.
Instead of working so hard to prove the skeptics wrong, it makes a lot more sense to delight the true believers. They deserve it, after all, and they're the ones that are going to spread the word for you.
The problem with taking offense is that it's really hard to figure out what to do with it after you're done using it. Better to just leave it on the table and walk away. Umbrage untaken quietly disappears.
I think there's plenty of room for blogs that exist to pay the blogger, or blogs that exist to turn a profit. That's just not the kind of blog I'm writing, and I'm not the kind of blogger that could do that.
The thing about information is that information is more valuable when people know it. There's an exception for business information and super timely information, but in all other cases, ideas that spread win.
My best advice: win little battles. Get in the habit of winning, of shipping, of having customers that can't live without you. Once you've demonstrated you know how to do the art, then go after the windmills.
One option is to struggle to be heard whenever you're in the room... Another is to be the sort of person who is missed when you're not. The first involves making noise. The second involves making a difference.
Art isn't only a painting. Art is anything that is creative, passionate and personal. Art is the unique work of a human being created to touch another. Art is created to have an impact, to change someone else.
The opportunity of a lifetime is to pick yourself. Quit waiting to get picked; quit waiting for someone to give you permission; quit waiting for someone to say you are officially qualified... and pick yourself.
Habits like blogging often and regularly, writing down the way you think, being clear about what you think are effective tactics, ignoring the burbling crowd and not eating bacon. All of these are useful habits.
Your drudgery is another person's delight. It's only a job if you treat it that way. The privilege to do our work, to be in control of the promises we make and the things we build, is something worth cherishing.
Rehearsing failure is simply a bad habit, not a productive use of your time. When you choose to visualize the path that works, you're more likely to shore it up and create an environment where it can take place.
When you set down the path to create art, whatever sort of art it is, understand that the path is neither short not easy. That means you must determine if the route is worth the effort. If it's not, dream bigger.
To make a product, to market an idea, to come up with any problem you want to solve that doesn't have a constituency with an otaku, is almost impossible... There's a hot sauce otaku, but there's no mustard otaku.
The problem with putting it all on the line is that it might not work out. The problem with not putting it all on the line is that it will never (ever) change things for the better. Not much of a choice, I think.
If you want to get in shape, go to the # gym every single day, change your clothes and take a shower. If you can do that every single day for a month, pretty soon you'll start doing something while you're there.
Many people are starting to realize that they work a lot and that working on stuff they believe in (and making things happen) is much more satisfying then just getting a paycheck and waiting to get fired (or die).
The librarian isn't a clerk who happens to work in a library. A librarian is a data hound, a guide, a sherpa and a teacher. The librarian is the interface between reams of data and the untrained but motivated user.
The problem with words is that they easily lose their meaning. Say something often enough and it becomes a tic, not an expression of how you actually feel. Not only that, but words rarely change things. Actions do.
Most of your competition spend their days looking forward to those rare moments when everything goes right. Imagine how much leverage you have if you spend your time maximizing those common moments when it doesn't.
It's easy to be afraid of taking a plunge, because, after all, plunging is dangerous. And the fear is a safe way to do nothing at all. Wading, on the other hand, gets under the radar. It gives you a chance to begin.
So by giving people a tool that they can share and benefit from, it's a form of media that isn't controlled by Rupert Murdoch or the guys at Viacom. It is a form of media that is earned every single time it spreads.
Art...is the intentional act of using your humanity to create a change in another person...Passion is caring enough about your art that you will do almost anything to give it away, to make it a gift, to change people.
Normal is fading away. Governments and industries and schools like normal, because it's easier, it scales and it's profitable. But people don't like it - we want to be who we are, not who some marketer tells us to be.
Who you hang out with determines what you dream about and what you collide with. And the collisions and the dreams lead to your changes. And the changes are what you become. Change the outcome by changing your circle.
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 goal of a marketing interaction isn't to close the sale, any more than the goal of a first date is to get married. No, the opportunity is to move forward, to earn attention and trust and curiosity and conversation.
Being an artist isn't a genetic disposition or a specific talent. It's an attitude we can all adopt. It's a hunger to seize new ground, make connections, and work without a map. If you do those things, you're an artist.
The thing about goals is that living without them is a lot more fun, in the short run. It seems to me, though, that the people who get things done, who lead, who grow and who make an impact . . . those people have goals.
There's no life-work balance. I think you have to have the discipline to have the life you want to have. And if you are stealing from one part of your life in order to make the other part work, you are going to pay for it.
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.
The digital asset that matters is trust. Awareness first, then interaction, and maybe a habit, but all three mean nothing if they don't lead to permission and trust. The privilege of connection. Everything else is slippery.
Anxiety is experiencing failure in advance. Tell yourself enough vivid stories about the worst possible outcome of your work and you'll soon come to believe them. Worry is not preparation, and anxiety doesn't make you better.
Repeating easy tasks again and again gets you not very far. Attacking only steep cliffs where no progress is made isn’t particularly effective either. No, the best path is an endless series of difficult (but achievable) hills.
If you do a job where someone tells you exactly what to do, they will find someone cheaper than you to do it. And yet our schools are churning out kids who are stuck looking for jobs where the boss tells them exactly what to do.
The way to work with a bully is to take the ball and go home. First time, every time. When there's no ball, there's no game. Bullies hate that. So they'll either behave so they can play with you or they'll go bully someone else.
If you can embrace the idea that your success and happiness are tied up in defeating the fear that's holding you back, you're 90 percent of the way to where you need to go, because no, we're not kids, and no, this is not a bike.
Any customer that walks away, disrespected and defeated, represents tens of thousands of dollars out the door, in addition to the failure of a promise the brand made in the first place. You can't see it but it's happening, daily.
We're often in a hurry to finish. Or in a hurry to close a sale. What happens when we adopt the posture of being in a hurry to be generous? With resources or insight or access or kindness... It's an interesting sort of impatience.
Sign your work...If you're not proud of it, don't ship it. If you are, sign your work and own the results. We'll know who to thank. If you work for a place where work goes unsigned (internally, in particular) it's worth asking why.
Fundamentalist is a person who considers whether a fact is acceptable to their faith before they explore it. As opposed to a curious person who explores first and then considers whether or not they want to accept the ramifications.
The joy of art is particularly sweet, though, because it carries with it the threat of rejection, of failure, and of missed connections. It's precisely the high-wire act of "this might not work" that makes original art worth doing.
Courage doesn't always involve physical heroism in the face of death. It doesn't always require giant leaps worthy of celebration. Sometimes, courage is the willingness to speak the truth about what you see and to own what you say.
No one ever gets talker's block. No one wakes up in the morning, discovers he has nothing to say, and sits quietly, for days or weeks, until the muse hits, until the moment is right, until all the craziness in his life has died down.
The best time to start promoting your book is three years before it comes out. Three years to build a reputation, build a permission asset, build a blog, build a following, build credibility and build the connections you'll need later.
The unhappy theory of business ethics is this: you have a fiduciary responsibility to maximize profit. Period. To do anything other than that is to cheat your investors. And in a competitive world, you don't have much wiggle room here.
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.
Seizing new ground, making connections between people or ideas, working without a map-these are works of art, and if you do them, you are an artist, regardless of whether you wear a smock, use a computer, or work with others all day long.
The Net is not television. It is the finest direct-marketing mechanism in the history of mankind. It is direct mail with free stamps, and it allows you to create richer and deeper relationships than you've ever been able to create before.