My friend, Jane, shared a fantastic quote from Brené Brown on Facebook recently:
''I think midlife is when the universe gently places her hands upon your shoulders, pulls you close, and whispers in your ear: I’m not screwing around. It’s time...
All in Careers
The Thing About Confidence
So, as anyone who follows English football knows, my team, Arsenal, is going through a pretty bad patch right now. There are a host of contributing factors to this, which I won't get into, but they've all culminated in a lack of belief within the team when they're on the field.
It's About What You Do Well, Not About What You Don't
I came across this video on Quartz, about a question posed by Mark Zuckerberg to Bill and Melinda Gates during the launch event of Bill and Melinda Gates’ 2018 Annual Letter, back in February.
"Why Should We Waste Time on Kabuki?"
There's a great scene in the TV show, Mad Men, where Don Draper stands his ground with a client who is stuck in his old ways, clinging to a set of ideas that may have once made his company successful but now leaves them trailing the competition.
"No Risk Baseball is Second Division Baseball"
In sport, as in life, the safe play won't make you a champion.
It might help you avoid a loss, maybe even get you the odd win here or there, but it won't propel you to the top of the league.
Karma or Free Will? What Defines You?
Nature or Nurture?
Karma or Free Will?
Which do you believe in?
Surround Yourself With People Who Believe In You
Think. Plan. Commit. Work hard. Assess. Evaluate. Redirect.
We're taught that if we want to achieve success, those are the essential steps we need to follow. That if are to be successful, we must be methodical, diligent and direct. That it's all down to us.
Is Your Team Issue a Problem of Content or of Values?
When working with a team member, it's important to gauge whether the issue they're exhibiting is fixable or not. And the question to ask, in this regard, is whether it's a values-based problem or a content-based development issue?
“I Love My Grudges. I Tend To Them Like Little Pets”
Letting go. It’s a hard thing to do when you feel you’ve been wronged. When you feel that you’ve given your best to someone but it hasn’t been reciprocated, or even recognized. When the trust you’ve placed in a colleague hasn’t been returned or even acknowledged.
War Stories: "I Don't Ever Want To Work With This Person Again!"
I once worked on a project with someone who I found to be very difficult to partner with. There were a number of reasons for it - part working style, part communication, part differing perspectives on the task at hand.
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:
Will You Take Your Smart Phone To Your Next Concert?
Around the turn of the year, Dave Chappelle and John Mayer (an interesting combination) played a series of shows at the Hollywood Palladium. As part of the event experience, they required their audience to put their cellphones in a special bag that could only be unlocked by a special tool located outside the performance venue.
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:
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:
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!"
Don’t Tolerate Rotten Beans
When you’re cooking a dish, it makes sense to have the best individual ingredients possible. It’s fair to say that the better the ingredients, the better the end product.
If you don’t, you’re putting the entire meal at risk. Not just the taste of it, but the entire experience (during and after).
"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.