Category: life
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Send the Elevator Back Down
"I believe if you have been successful at what you dreamed of doing with your life, then it is your obligation to spend a good portion of your time sending the elevator back down. That was a phrase that Jack Lemmon used to say to me all the time and is something that I have…
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We Discover Our Purpose by Trial and Error
It's really tragic how many of us are unhappy in our work. A big survey (covering 230,000 workers in 142 countries) just out from Gallup found that 87% of workers are either 'not engaged' in their work (putting little energy in, unhappy, but not drastically so), or 'actively disengaged' (emotionally disconnected, actively disliking their job). Another survey last…
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Do Not Stay in a Job you Dislike
What's the most important life lesson that older people feel you must know? Do not stay in a job you dislike. Eric Barker has summarised the work of Karl Pillemer from Cornell University, who interviewed almost 1500 people aged over 70 for his book 30 Lessons for Living: Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans. Pillemer…
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The Million-Mile Porsche
I lost a good couple of hours yesterday watching the well-crafted short films in the Petrolicious YouTube channel featuring classic car owners talking about their machines. There's some wonderful quotes, like the Ferrari 250 Lusso owner who talks about how the process to start the car up is like a ritual that gets you re-acquainted with…
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Marina and Ulay
The Kickstarter 'Projects We Love' email told me about performance artist Marina Abramovic's endeavour to fund 'a living, breathing museum for performance art, where attendees not only visit, but participate.' Marina is famous of-course for (amongst many other things) her performace piece The Artist Is Present which in 2010 broke MoMA attendance records and which saw…
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Dealing With Worry
"Set aside 15 minutes in the morning and 15 minutes in the evening to do nothing but worry about the future." Playing catch up post-holiday (and not entirely unconcerned about the volume of email I would face whilst firing up my Gmail after a two week hiatus) I happened across Maria Popova's excellent post on…
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‘If You Have A Choice, Never Have a Job’
Since I left corporate world to run my own business, one of the hardest questions I have to answer is 'what do you do?'. My answer usually involves describing a portfolio of strategy and consultancy work, workshops, speaking, making, and writing that span the fields of marketing, planning, content, and even into journalism. It probably…
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Duct Tape Surfing
A friend passed away this week following a long but couragious battle with a particularly virulent form of cancer. Something like that is a stark reminder that in the midst of our daily trials, we should always remember just how fragile and arbitrary life can be and why it's so important to look after one…
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Hustling
"There might be 20 jobs now where you’re set for life, but the rest of us will be hustling forever." Alex Madrigal on 'getting off other people's ladders'.
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This Is Water
"There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way…" I remember the first time I read David Foster Wallace's commencement speech, given to a graduating class at Kenyon College, Ohio. This video is an evocative ten minute snippet of that wonderful talk, which is all…