Slomo
Finding your PDS (Personal Delusional System) should be your life pursuit. Here’s the one of ex-doctor who rebooted his life until everyone call him crazy or Slomo (depending on who you ask). One thing for sure, he does what he wants, and doesn’t apologize for it. Great story.
There’s lots of ways to be as a person. And some people express their deep appreciation in different ways. But one of the ways that I believe people express their appreciation to the rest of humanity is to make something wonderful and put it out there.
And you never meet the people, you never shake their hands, you never hear their story or tell yours, but somehow, in the act of making something with a great deal of care and love, something is transmitted there.
And it’s a way of expressing to the rest of our species our deep appreciation. So we need to be true to who we are, and remember what’s really important to us.
That’s what is going to keep Apple Apple, if we keep us us.
Steve Jobs
Note sure you can hammer the nail more than this one. I love it!
What’s the difference? Actually, there are many differences:
- Amateurs stop when they achieve something. Professionals understand that the initial achievement is just the beginning.
- Amateurs have a goal. Professionals have a process.
- Amateurs think they are good at everything. Professionals understand their circles of competence.
- Amateurs see feedback and coaching as someone criticizing them as a person. Professionals know they have weak spots and seek out thoughtful criticism.
- Amateurs value isolated performance. Think about the receiver who catches the ball once on a difficult throw. Professionals value consistency. Can I catch the ball in the same situation 9 times out of 10?
- Amateurs give up at the first sign of trouble and assume they’re failures. Professionals see failure as part of the path to growth and mastery.
- Amateurs don’t have any idea what improves the odds of achieving good outcomes. Professionals do.
- Amateurs show up to practice to have fun. Professionals realize that what happens in practice happens in games.
- Amateurs focus on identifying their weaknesses and improving them. Professionals focus on their strengths and on finding people who are strong where they are weak.
- Amateurs think knowledge is power. Professionals pass on wisdom and advice.
- Amateurs focus on being right. Professionals focus on getting the best outcome.
- Amateurs focus on first-level thinking. Professionals focus on second-level thinking.
- Amateurs think good outcomes are the result of their brilliance. Professionals understand when outcomes are the result of luck.
- Amateurs focus on the short term. Professionals focus on the long term.
- Amateurs focus on tearing other people down. Professionals focus on making everyone better.
- Amateurs make decisions in committees so there is no one person responsible if things go wrong. Professionals make decisions as individuals and accept responsibility.
- Amateurs blame others. Professionals accept responsibility.
- Amateurs show up inconsistently. Professionals show up every day.
(Source: farnamstreetblog.com)
I heard you deleted the Internet from your phone. And that you deleted Twitter and Instagram and e-mail. No way that’s true, right?
It is! Whenever you check for a new post on Instagram or whenever you go on The New York Times to see if there’s a new thing, it’s not even about the content. It’s just about seeing a new thing. You get addicted to that feeling. You’re not going to be able to control yourself. So the only way to fight that is to take yourself out of the equation and remove all these things.
What happens is, eventually you forget about it. You don’t care anymore. When I first took the browser off my phone, I’m like, [gasp] How am I gonna look stuff up? But most of the shit you look up, it’s not stuff you need to know. All those websites you read while you’re in a cab, you don’t need to look at any of that stuff.
It’s better to just sit and be in your own head for a minute. I wanted to stop that thing where I get home and look at websites for an hour and a half, checking to see if there’s a new thing. And read a book instead. I’ve been doing it for a couple months, and it’s worked. I’m reading, like, three books right now. I’m putting something in my mind. It feels so much better than just reading the Internet and not remembering anything.
Jim Carrey: I Needed Color
“What you do in life chooses you. You can choose not to do it. You can choose to try to do something safer…”
Shoedog by Phil Knight
One of the best book I ever read. It made me cried and made me shout of admiration. Above all, you read this book because of how it makes you feel, and not just because it is phenomenally well written.
The energy and emotions you feel each time you take the book in your hands and read a chapter representing a year in the life of Phil is hard to describe. You wish you could teleport yourself in time and beg to be part of the adventure, to be part of the family. Not for the glory or the money, but for the possible dent in the universe you could make together.
An amazing memoir. One you will never forget. It would not only transform how you see Nike, but yourself.
Jason Fried:
One of the biggest costs is regret.
Sometimes you’ll do anything to avoid the immediate pain of saying no. And since in the near-term there’s little cost to saying “yes”, promises feel like a bargain. But while promises are cheap and easy to make, actual work is hard and expensive to do.
Once it’s time to get to work, you realize just how expensive that “yes” really was.
As for when to say “Yes” and “No”, you’ll know it (trust your gut feeling) In doubt, say no.
This is really well said by the author:
“Wisdom is about pattern recognition. And the older you are, the more patterns you’ve seen.”
Even in your 40ties you begin to feel a bit outdated. And the more you work with the younger generation, the more you see how mentoring is needed. It’s not about the novelty or your creativity anymore, but about the revelancy of your wisdom.
George S Patton
Maybe the phrase that best describe the management team of Phil Knight at Nike.