Archive for 2008
Somebody else’s success
Success doesn’t come through hard work for someone else. Success comes from constant, consistent work for yourself.
Read MoreMy immediate thoughts
You are what you think.
Read MoreDo I look like FedEx?
Did I deliver value today? Many of us are great at creating value in some regard. But creating and delivering is the ultimate worthwhile pursuit.
Read MorePurrcrastination
Procrastination is not just the absence of productive work but the presence of a cluttered mind thinking of ways to avoid doing the work. I have met people who expend more effort and energy in avoiding any real work than they would invest in doing the actual work.
Read MoreStand-up presentation
Giving a presentation is a lot like stand-up comedy. The presentation you give may look effortless, but it doesn’t happen without dedicated practice and repeated delivery and rehearsal. And like stand-up, things will go wrong and there will be hecklers in the crowd, so make sure you have practiced for those eventualities too.
Read MoreSmall steps to big changes
How do you stop a huge asteroid plummeting towards the Earth? You nudge it, ever so gently, over a long period of time, to change it’s course. Small changes in your life and your career, applied consistently and over a long period of time lead to massive, compounding outcomes that can significantly change your world…
Read MoreFear Is The Mind Killer
Attempting the impossible is a nice cop out to never achieving anything worthwhile. “Oh, we tried to do the impossible, we learnt a lot, but we failed.” Attempting the impossible means you won’t ever succeed and success is the primary fear people harbour when it comes to fulfilling their ambitions.
Read MoreIgnorance Is Piss
You’ll never find a use for what you don’t know.
Read MorePaid passionate pursuits
No matter how smart or dumb you are, always pick a field of endeavour for your career that pays well and pick something that pays nothing at all for your hobbies. Finding your passion is great and all, but until you find your passion paying enough to cover all your expenses, save the passionate pursuits…
Read MoreBetter every day
How do you get better at doing something? You practice it every day. How do you know you have practiced enough for that day? The same way a Mormon tithes. A fixed percentage of your time, every day, is enough to help you improve. I cannot say what that percentage is going to be, it’s…
Read MoreIt’s A Travesty!
The innumerable privations of social media is the travesty of the commons made real. A futile attempt to defend oneself against every Fedora-wearing critic with a correction pen.
Read MoreDelayed gratification
Take a look at someone’s Amazon.com wish list and their placedĀ orders. If they have a wish list, they can delay gratification a bit. If their recent order history shows compulsive buying, they don’t do delayed gratification so well. Delayed gratification is one of the principle keys to succeeding in anything.
Read MoreAll out of bullets
If your presentation contains a bullet point (mine frequently do so I am utterly guilty of this) then your presentation is bad. There’s so many more ways to succinctly present information that isn’t a standard, boring bullet point. Unfortunately, bullet points are the low-hanging fruit of information presentation so it is the first thing we…
Read MoreThe most precious gift you can give
The power to say “No” clears away distraction and clutter from our life. When we say “No” we make a commitment to not do a thing; whether it is a request for our time, money, or our attention. Very few of us execute our right to say “No” because we want to please the people…
Read MoreSocial Capitalisation
You have social capital and clueless people are always trying to spend it for you. “Can you introduce me to investors that will finance me?” “Can you introduce me to other engineers that will work for free?” “Can you get me a job at that company I am completely unqualified for or incapable of performing?”…
Read More“To do” vs “got done”
Leave a public record of all the useful things you’ve accomplished. Most people areĀ not that interested in your “to do list” and are way more interested in your “got done” list.
Read MoreIncreasing Your Efficiency
If there was one thing you could do today that would increase your own efficiency, what would it be? And why aren’t you doing it?
Read MoreI Will Be Even Better Tomorrow
You don’t have to be the best at what you do. You just need to be better at what you do today than you were yesterday. And tomorrow you will be better still.
Read MoreGoodbye!
Yesterday I closed my video game studio. I launched my new business on September 5th 2001, and on September 5th 2008, seven years later, I officially closed the doors on the studio. The economy took its toll, and one too many fiscally poor clients put us too far underwater to recover in any reasonable time…
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