Nature or Nurture?
Karma or Free Will?
Which do you believe in?
All in Aspirations
More Often Than Not, It's Just Your Imagination
If there is a truism in each and every one of our lives, it is that we will all suffer setbacks. Whether personally or professionally, something (at times, many things) will not go as planned.
That's life.
Is Plan B Distracting You From Plan A?
Twitter has become a bit of a guilty pleasure (and at times 'infuriator') for me. I will admit that I probably spend a bit more time on it than I should.
But every now and then, I come across a gem of a quote, such as this one:
Remembering David Bowie
The first concert I ever saw was David Bowie, during his Serious Moonlight Tour, on December 8th, 1983. Three plus decades may have accentuated some of the colors in my mind, but as I recall it, it's still one of the greatest shows I ever saw.
Why You Should Create For Yourself, Not For Anyone Else
Talib Kweli Greene wrote an article recently on Medium called In Defense of Ms. Hill. The article is, as the title suggests, about Lauryn Hill, who first rose to fame with The Fugees, and specifically about what rights and expectations we can have of her as as an artist.
Who's Writing Your Story?
One of the cool features of Facebook is On This Day, where it shows you memories of what you posted on a specific date in prior years. I came across this one from Kevin Smith that I shared last year:
Remember This: You Cannot Hurt Yourself Better...
It’s New Years Day and many of us, myself included, will sit down and ruminate over the year ahead. What we want for ourselves, what are our plans, what are our goals. And, in doing so, many of us will plan for the difficulties and sacrifices these goals will require.
The Point Of Protest...
The point of protest is to create discomfort. The point of pushing our boundaries is to break things, and, yes, to break through. The point of being different is to provoke an alternate reaction.
These discomforts, breakthroughs, reactions have a purpose. They are to topple the old order, to change our minds, to drive change.
Our Last Time...and We Never Knew It...
Yesterday, a buddy of mine shared a couple of remarkable phrases he found on Reddit:"At some point in your childhood, you and your friends went outside to play together for the last time, and none of you knew it."
Or:
Your Most Important Journeys Will Not Come With a Map*
The thing is we all want certainty. We all want to know that the effort we are putting in will be worth it. That the time and money and sweat and blood and tears had some merit. And that ultimately, it wasn't all for nothing. But the truth is, that that isn't life. You won't know any of that for a fact.
Will Our Kids Suffer from 'The Middle Class Curse'?
As parents, we always strive to do the best for our kids - to give them the comfort, the opportunities and the means that we never had. It's the natural progression of things - to always want more for our kids than what we had when we were children.
Steve Jobs, Passion and Entrepreneurship
"You have to have a lot of passion for what you're doing...because it's so hard, that if you don't, any rational person would give up...the ones that were successful, loved what they did, so they could persevere...and the ones that didn't love it, quit, because they're sane!"
"Do What You Can't"
There's a whole new world out there where everything that we took for granted over the last 10, 20, 30 years is now being democratized. Access to money, technology, infrastructure, is a non-issue. You just need a good idea. And the balls to go do it.
When Dylan Went Electric
On July 25th, 1965, Bob Dylan went onstage at the Newport Folk Festival, plugged in his electric guitar and played the chords to "Maggie's Farm". The audience, who had come to see an acoustic poet, the folk voice of the generation, were caught by surprise.
Companies Are Marathons Not Sprints
I was at a conference recently and one of the speakers was sharing the story of how he built his firm - an organization he grew over a number of years, one that he ultimately sold for over a Billion dollars.
So You 'Made' It. Is That It?
We put a lot of work into achieving our goals and getting ourselves to where we want to be, whether in our relationships, our ventures or our careers.
Tom Peters: A Business School Without Wall Street or Consulting?
It's a crazy idea, one that's quite difficult, if not impossible, to implement. (And, many might argue, not desirable, either.) But like a lot of Tom Peters' ideas, it's provocative.
"Your Ideas Have All Been Stolen Already"
There are a number of writers and thinkers I look to on a regular basis for ideas, inspiration and insight, and Seth Godin is one of them. For many years, now, he has upended my view of what is important, what we should value and what we should focus on. It was his writing that got me started with my own blog.
Don't Stop Playing...
Isn't that the truth?
Lets not lose our minds in the race to maturity, responsibility and so-called growth.