#hack your work

[coffeehead]

My advice to you as a young actor at the beginning of an illustrious career is that not everybody can be your friend so you choose your enemies. And when you see them you walk up to them and say, 'You are my enemy.' And do you know how you will know your enemy? Anyone who gets in the way of your work.

Bette Davis

[coffeehead]

My definition of success

Success is spending your time on what’s important.

[coffeehead]

Mission, not passion. Take 2.

At a panel discussion recently, I listened to some respected professionals talking about their careers. Two of them repeated the cliché that passion was the key to being successful. I heard them call it passion, but what they described didn’t sound like passion at all. It sounded like they had just happened to work very hard at one particular thing.

So, two observations. One: It’s easy to look back from a position of accomplishment and create a story connecting some dots that lead inexorably to success. Two: You don’t hear from the ones who were passionate but never made it.

It’s way too easy to use the word passion when you don’t want to credit luck for your success. Which is why I think we hear this so often. I’d love to hear somebody admit, “You know what? I was just plain lucky.”

[coffeehead]

We don't have a lot of time on this earth...

[coffeehead]

What would you do if you had a million dollars?

[coffeehead]

Mission, not passion.

One of my least favorite pieces of advice is, “follow your passion.” The people who say this are usually the types who just as well might ask you, “What would you do if you had a million dollars?”

Your mission is that creative outlet into which you channel your superpower. It's how you figure out what's important and it's measured by how many lives you touch.

So ask yourself, “What is my mission? How can I use my superpower to influence the world?”

The answer will guide you towards what you are meant to accomplish.

[coffeehead]

When everyone has a laptop and connection to the world, then everyone owns a factory. Instead of coming together physically, we have the ability to come together virtually, to earn attention, to connect labor and resources, to deliver value. In the post-industrial age, the good jobs and the real progress belong only to those with the confidence and the background to use the scientific method to question authority and to reimagine a better reality.

Seth Godin, Linchpin