Have you ever looked around at the work of others and felt like yours isn’t measuring up? Has this ever caused your passion for your work to wane? Don’t allow the slow ratcheting-up of expectations to paralyze you. Use the work of your peers and heroes as fuel, and don’t allow it to trip you up or cause you to drift off-course.
If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll never know when you get there. I believe there are three “markers” of progress that help all of us avoid the trap of drifting along with our work.
Your best ideas won't come from staring harder at a problem, they'll come from immersing yourself in the ideas and thoughts of others. The best way to do this is by immersing yourself in great books. However, each book you read deserves a different amount of your finite resources.
There are times when it’s wise to settle for the most reasonable answer, but don’t allow the daily grind to lull you into mediocrity.
When you are younger, it’s possible to be successful because you are smarter, more talented, or more of a hustler than your peers. However, as you grow older, you begin to see patterns that you might have overlooked before simply because you didn’t have as much data. Knowledge can be bought, but wisdom is always earned.
Winning is often a game of percentages. Practice and hone your skills through unnecessary creation, follow your instincts for opportunity, and don’t be afraid to take shots and miss.
If you want the important work to get done, and done well, then you need to schedule time for it. Don’t let your frantic schedule disrupt your rhythm. Dedicate time to what matters most and do work you’ll be proud of in ten years.
With the increase of information crossing your attention span each day, it's easy to forget even the most impactful experiences. Make every effort to capture these, and to ensure that they become a valuable part of your creative process.
Controlling behavior never leads to results beyond your own grasp. However, when you are able to achieve influence, you multiply your efforts and reproduce your values and principles in the lives of others.
Your "on demand" job cannot contain the totality of your creative ideas and energy. We all must embrace "unnecessary creating" in order to maintain a portfolio of activity that helps us grow in skills, drive, and the ability to take advantage of opportunities.
It's so easy to allow negative experiences to define your life and work. Today's guest, Dr. Rick Hanson, offers ideas and practices from his best-selling book Hardwiring Happiness to help you learn to "stay with the good" in your life, and remain open to possibilities and ideas.
We need strong, thriving relationships in order to produce great work over time. Specifically, we need three types: mirrors, circles, and guides. In this episode, we address each and how they can play a role in our growth.
Tom Rath is the author of several books, including Strengths Finder 2.0, and Eat Move Sleep. His new book is called Are You Fully Charged?, and addresses the small actions that make a big difference in everyday effectiveness in life and work.
Brian Koppelman, screenwriter (Rounders, Oceans Thirteen), producer (The Illusionist, The Lucky Ones), and director (Solitary Man), talks about his personal practices, compromise versus creative courage, and his new podcast The Moment.
Stretching always requires that you risk failure, which means you will probably feel a little over your head from time to time. Don’t mistake a little nervousness for weakness. Use it as fuel.
We all have blind spots in our creative work, and they can rob us of really valuable insights and contribution. It's important to test assumptions and ensure that we're not fossilizing around them.
Many people allow their life to become cluttered with passive yes's, not active ones. They are living with a decision they made months or years ago, and are not making the effort to re-visit whether it's still the right decision. Sometimes you have to say "no" in order to re-focus your efforts.
Are you "rejection proof"? Jia Jiang has just released a book by that title, and in this interview he shares his journey of struggling with rejection and how he overcame it.
In this interview, Jon discusses how to make strategic investments now in your life and career that will pay dividends for a long time to come.
If you make things and share them, your heart will at some point be broken. If you never share, it will harden. Your choice.