Managing Friendships in Business

Nice people become friends with each other. Its an inevitable part of our world. If you're not a jerk, and I'm not a jerk, we will, at the very least, enjoy spending time together.

Most people in this world are not jerks. So when you go into business with people, the likelihood is that, if you were not already friends, you will quickly become such.

And then what happens if the business goes sour? If the root of your friendship is a third entity driven by myriad factors, it's a high stakes kind of friendship. A lot can go wrong in a startup. Actually, most things seem to go wrong in a startup. And navigating a successful friendship through this foamy sea is an immense challenge.

Which do you value more, the business or the friendship? If one came before the other (you started a business with your friend, or you became friends with your business partner), how does that affect your answer? To which do you owe the duty of care?

And this gets further convoluted when there is a partnership of three, and you find yourself in the middle of the war.

I suppose that's why life gets to be so long. So you have the chance to lose businesses, lose friendships, and try to make it all up again later.

30 Days of Genius- Adrian Grenier

For the last time, Adrian's words are in bold. My personal comments are in italics.

• Giving people the truth is a form of power
• Pure honesty builds a trust that is powerful. People follow honesty more than they would ever be loyal to mistrust.
• The journey is the purpose. There is no bell to ring at the top
• Lionel Richie. 'Nuff said. 
• Institutional learning limits learning to the institution 
• Learning withing the confines of an institution- like a school or university- means learning only happens within the constraints of that institution. Which isn't a bad thing, if you have the friends and colleagues to make that institution as expansive as possible. 
• But learning should always be happening, with no constraints. The benefit of not going to university or of purposefully expanding your learning beyond it is that you begin to learn from many different people.
• How do you make it in the movie industry? You have an iPhone. Go out and make something
• To end this series on anything but a metaphor would be wrong. We have all the tools we need in life. Any one who says otherwise is looking for an excuse. Film? iPhone. Entrepreneurship? Squarespace. Chefdom? A pan and some salt. Travel blogger? A car and safari.
• We can do whatever we want to do. Leave the excuses at home, and get after it.

30 Days of Genius- Caterina Fake

Caterina's words are in bold. My personal comments are in italics. 

This was one of the best interview in the series. A woman I hadn't heard of until now had an awesome impact! 

• 'Do what you love' sounds silly until it works.
• Cliches are cliches for a reason. Follow your dreams is a foolish thing to tell somebody, and probably even more silly to believe. Until it works, and you've succeeded doing something you love.

• Auto-didacticism. If you’re passionate about something and you want to learn it, you can. And you will.
• A major theme of this series is to always be learning. And, like learning all throughout life, that happens through willpower and commitment. Teach yourself the things you want to learn. Others won't teach it to you. You can learn from others, but you must teach yourself. 

• No matter how far you’ve gone down the wrong road, turn back
• The sunk cost fallacy is probably most prevalent in our own lives. If you're in the wrong job for a year, or your company has been making poor decisions, today is the earliest you can change that. And if it should be changed, don't put it off. 

• Don’t have time? Lies- we’ve all got time for the smallest daily commitment. What’s the story you’re telling yourself?
• Another 'Love This' moment. We've all got time. It's about prioritizing. Everyone- or at least everyone reading this blog post- has 30 minutes in a day that they can find to commit to pursuing an interest or a project.
• "What's the story you're telling yourself" is an alternative to Bernard Roth's (Stanford Engineering) mantra of "Live a life without excuses." Don't say 'you cannot because' or 'you did not because'. You simply did not, or found a reason you cannot. Remove the reason, and you'll make it happen.

• Success leads us astray. Stop chasing prizes. 
• The prize is not the goal. In many ways, there is no goal. Jeez I sound Buddhist.
• If I didn't tell CJ's Lionel Richie story that he referenced 8 times, it would be as if I didn't even watch the series. Lionel had a year where he was on top. He won a grammy, a tony, and 7 other awards. And when he reached the pinnacle of achievement, what did he find at the top of the mountain? Nothing. It feels good, then you get back to work.
• So stop chasing something you don't even understand. Enjoy the ride, that's the whole point.

30 Days of Genius- Gretchen Rubin

Gretchen's words are in bold. My personal comments are in italics. 

• Think about what you want
• The 5 year plan said in much broader context. Think about what you really want. Then find ways to get there. Or find people who have already gotten there, and follow their pre-paved path. 

• Try things you love with a low-investment commitment 
• I'm often dismayed when I hear that my friends won't pursue writing or art or singing or pottery because of their current job. Pursuing something does not mean quitting all and doing it 60 hours a week. Try things out. Do them a few times. Implement them into your schedule. Make them a part of your life. Take a class. Over time, this becomes habit, and habit becomes life. 

• Who do you envy?
• Throw back to the first statement- who is in an position you want to be in? Can you go work with them? Understand their path?

• It’s all about being held accountable
• Set consequences for failure. Holding yourself true to your word does not work for everyone. There are services that help hold you accountable. If you tell friends what you're doing, you're held accountable. There must be something at the end of each daily habit to reward or punish you for doing it. 

• Admitting what you are is admitting what you are not
• And that can be both a disappointment and a great relief. Focusing on what you were born as and what you grew into, instead of what others may expect from you, allows you to live a happier and more honest life. 

• Goals are good for goals, not for habits
• Love this! Goals help drive results, habits help drive lifestyles. I had a goal of completing a marathon in under 4 hours. After 20 weeks of hard work, I did it. Then it took me 3 months to go running again.

30 Days of Genius- Brian Solis

Brian's words are in bold. My personal comments are in italics. 

• People spend 177 minutes a day on their phone
• Lord help us. I'm not surprised. And there are plenty of days when I might be adding to this number. But in many ways, that makes me said.
• On a more practical sense, imagine the opportunity! If you control part of someone's phone time, that's a valuable and memorable interaction.

• You don’t create experiences by doing what others have done before 
• Referencing the Virgin Airlines Safety Video, Brian makes the point that ingenuity is what drives impressive experiences. Copying past models is a standard. Be the one who breaks the mold. 

• "It’s not good enough to be good enough. It’s not good enough to be the best. You have to now understand the impact you want to have and the role you want to play in someone's life and who that person is and design for all of it." 
• Speaking to a company's tactics, not personal accomplishment, Brian talks about today's society requiring deeper thinking of the companies that feed it instead of just great products. The Triple Bottom Line approach is what guides great creative organizations.

• Starbucks doesn’t look at other, competitive, coffee shops for inspiration. They look at PayPal, Apple, and other great tech companies. 
• Inspiration comes from across industries. All coffee shops are doing similar things. All payments companies are doing similar things. And if they're not, then copying them will only get you to their level, not beyond it. If you want to be great, your organization needs to look at the best of other industries and find ways to apply that to your own. 

• No one achieves greatness without completely exposing themselves
• Vulnerability leads to empowerment. It's like the tale of the athlete with great potential who, always afraid of injury or embarrassment, never quite reached it. Work as hard as you can. Be open and honest. Take risks. Greatness is not guaranteed, but it's definitely more likely. And the ride becomes more of a roller-coaster than a merry-go-round. And c'mon. Who really likes the merry-go-round?

30 Days of Genius- James Altucher

James' words are in bold. My personal comments are in italics. 

• Physical health, personal relationships, creativity, practicing gratitude
• These are a few of my favorite things! Just kidding, it's what James tries to practice every day. If he takes care of each of these four, he knows he is having a good day.

• The world is full of hyphens (5 creative projects)
• CJ has repeated this often, and now he found a supporter. It seems everyone is defined by their side projects now. Do more of these, and you will find more happiness and more success.
• It has been found that 5 creative projects is the perfect number to inspire the greatest creativity. Juggle lots of balls, because that's when the going gets good. 

• A lot of success is about knowing how to do tiny experiments
• Test things in little ways. Run small experiments. Try something, learn to let it go. Create mini versions of the future you want to imagine. 
• In other words, don't commit 100% of your time and money to something until you've tested a small version of it. 

• See what’s happening now, and let others decide if that’s the future. 
• It's too hard to predict the future. Let others do that, because they'll make more mistakes than good decisions. It's your job to do things well today, and make today a priority every day.

• Technology doesn’t excite me that much- what excites me is the variety of choices it brings
• I suppose those two are one and the same, but James draws a clear distinction. Technology is a toy box of opportunity. It presents options within itself, and by nature of providing ways for us to explore other opportunities as it saves us time in the realm of the mundane. Thanks, technology!

30 Days of Genius- Tina Roth Eisenberg

Tina's words are in bold. My personal comments are in italics.

• What are you side projects?
• Side projects inspire creative work in themselves and in your main work. They are works of passion and interest. They force you to deal with constraints of time, money, and resources, but often come out with great results. Have side projects- it's fun and important to the world. And to yourself.

• Confidence is impressive, enthusiasm is infectious. Confidence is about yourself, enthusiasm is about something else.
• There are two ways to pitch an idea or inspire an audience. Always choose to intermingle enthusiasm into your confidence. Confidence could be more practical and unbiased, but it's enthusiasm that really gets others inspired to your dream. 

• The thing that’s hard is there to keep everybody else out, not to keep you out -CJ
• CHASE JARVIS DROPPING FIRE. You should be thrilled to do that hard things, because that means no one else is doing them. You are unstoppable because you are controlled by you. You can't speak for anyone else's will power or abilities- but you can always accomplish the hard thing.

• Stop complaining. Fix it, or let it go.
• Tina's advice? On point. If you find yourself complaining about something for extended periods of time, either devote the effort to fix it, or agree to let it go and move on with your life. 

30 Days of Genius- Neil Strauss

Neil's words are in bold. My personal comments are in italics. 

• You don’t know if it’s good. You just know that you made it. 
• You can't critique your own work as well as the rest of the world can. You don't know if it's good or bad. It's simply yours. Release it, and see what comes of it. 

• You throw a pebble in a culture and you don’t know where the ripples are gonna go. The question is- are you going to throw it. 
• Taking risks is important to you and to the world. Risk-taking ensures that you're making a difference. What that difference becomes is always a mystery. But that the difference exists is reliant on your risk taking.

• Don’t share it until you think it's good. If you’re sharing something that you know is imperfect, you’re losing your opportunity for valuable feedback
• This is a clarification on the common entrepreneurship trope of 'release as early as possible.' Put out good work, not bare bones work. This does not mean to wait until it is perfect- just until you are happy with it.

• Lock yourself in a room. Remove all distractions. Remove all excuses. 
• So much of procrastination is self-imposed distraction. Phones ring. Internet gets exciting. Friends say hi. If you remove all of these and set rules for yourself- like the writing 20 pages before getting your freedom from your self-imposed cell- you'll find that creating is less daunting than it seems. 

• Money can’t buy happiness, but experiences can. And money can buy experiences. 
• Money isn't evil. It should be sought after, but for the right reasons. Not for the sake of money, for the sake of opportunities.

30 Days of Genius- Austin Kleon

Austin's words are in bold. My personal comments are in italics.

• What can I do that will mean the most to the most people
• Take action with great consequences. Do things that create waves, not ripples. Spend your time in a world in which your actions mean something to people other than yourself.

• Good poets copy great poets steal
• If you follow one person it's plagarism. If you follow many then it's innovation. Take from the wisdoms of others. They worked hard to make your work more meaningful. 

• Creativity is about having a network
• You need other people around you to inspire creativity. You can't do it alone. And you shouldn't have to. It's not that the lonely artist or the mad scientist or the single passionate entrepreneur is dead. It is simply easier to be a team player. 

• Productivity is so overrated in so many ways. 
• A fascinating little statement. Productivity means you don't spend time with your mind aimlessly wandering the ether of it's imagination. Being productive and being innovative are often on opposite ends from each other. And you need the latter to ensure that your productivity is going towards a good cause. 

• I’m going to make the worst thing I can make
• Do things as a test. Stretch your imagination. Put weird constraints on your work, and you'll return with fun results.

• "Everyone the same age as you is really just an alternate universe of your life with choices you didn’t make"
• I LOVE this concept. We could have all been the 22 year old, or 40 year old, or 87 year old who lives next door. Instead, we did what we decided to do. And that's what got us here. Think about the choices your counter-universes made. Look into how people older than you are living. Decide where you want to go, and the life choices that will take you to that universe. 

30 Days of Genius- Daymond John

Daymond's words are in bold. My personal comments are in italics.

• "It wasn’t that moment. It was the 6 years leading up to it."
• There isn't a moment that changes lives. Well sure, maybe there is. But that moment does not exist without the years of effort it took to get there.
• The most noticeable thing about the Empire State Building is the radio antenna on the top. But no one would ever notice that if it wasn't for the hundreds of floors below it. 

• "You still have to wake up at 5:59am and go to sleep at 12:01"
• Just because things are easier to start today than ever before (and, without a doubt, they are), doesn't mean it takes anything less than crazy hard work to succeed.

• "You are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with"
• A classic. We all mold ourselves to the person we are spending time with. Mold up, not down.

• You have to be able to put yourself in 2-5 words. “I’m on a quest"
• Who you are, what you stand for, and what people think of you should all be summed up simply.

• Be active in your own education
• Waiting for education to come to you is the broken model we still live in today. It's the K-12. Want to learn more and be more? Take control.

• "Life is a series of mentors."
• We're always learning, and there are always people out there to teach us. Always have a mentor, no matter the discipline. 

30 Days of Genius- Brandon Stanton

Brandon's words are in bold. My personal comments are in italics. 

• "Always be tough on yourself, always be tough on your work. Humans of New York is never the same as it was 6 months ago."
• You should always be changing as a creative and an individual. Good work is different today than it will be tomorrow. You should be critical of your past work so that it can constantly grow and change.

• "It’s a blessing to be the first one who gets bored with your own work."
• You are the first person to see your work, so you should be the first person to get bored with your work. That means you'll be the first person who wants to create new work, and it will constantly be different.

• "People listen when I speak because I very rarely speak."
• Make your words meaningful. Make your audience value your output, because it is rare and thoughtful.
• Wasn't it Napoleon who said "do not speak unless you are the smartest one in the room."? And look where that got him...

• "We all have advantages and disadvantages unique to ourselves. But everyone has the same capacity to work."
• You'll likely not be the best at something. You're also almost definitely not the worst. But the one thing you can be great at is work. It's one of the few things truly within your control. Work harder and longer than anyone else, and you'll see great results.

• "Following your dreams is nothing but hard work."
• Don't be the musician following her dreams without playing your instrument every single day.
• You're not actually following your dreams as a photographer without taking 100 pictures every single day. 
• Don't make "I'm following my dream" an excuse to not work hard. You need to work doubly hard to bring your talent to the forefront.

• "People are paralyzed by the need to make something great."
• Great work is a long, tedious road. It's spotted with releases of good things, long before there is something great. 
• As an amateur anything, you cannot be afraid of releasing something not great. Put the work out there, it won't ever be perfect anyway. 

30 Days of Genius- Kevin Rose

Kevin's words are in bold. My personal comments are in italics. 

• "Go after the space with no competition"
• Very much like what Peter Thiel advocates- competition is for losers. If all the big players and best entrepreneurs are tackling one market, why would you try to go after that? 
• Kevin did social media years ago, before others were doing it. Now he's in the luxury watch market. Because there is no one at his level in that market, so that's enough of a reason to go after it. He can have an impact there that is much more tangible and attainable than in a crowded space. 

• "The best founders are the ones that see something before anyone else"
• This isn't trackable in the moment, but so clear after the fact. Founders disagree with something in the world wholeheartedly, and this is often proven through the story of the company's founding.
• Uber was on AngelList trying to raise money because no investor would believe in what they were doing. 

• "I want my Wikipedia page to have a list of so many failures. The fun in life is launching something no one else has done before. Because who cares?"
• Wow- one of my favorite lines in this entire series. Let's dissect sentence by sentence.
• 1) How cool is this! A list of a bunch of failures, perhaps punctuated by a few successes, likely in dozens of industries, to describe a career. Every few years your life is in a different arena.
• 2) If you're someone who agrees with this, that is an intense and risk-laden statement. Because launching something no one else has done before means, innately, that you will fail. And sometimes be poor. And often be mocked. But if you can handle all that- then the fun in life is totally about starting things no one else has before.
• 3) WHO CARES! As long as you can feed yourself and you're not doing anything evil, nobody cares what you're doing or thinking of believing. Or if they do care and they do negatively judge, then you should not care.

• "Founders have an internal drive that something must exist, and that comes from a very creative place."
• Founders have this idea, deep inside themselves. They see the end product (if there is really ever such a thing) and work through the creative process to go from nonexistence to reality.

• "What can be most beneficial is something different"
• If you're in a rut, or you're looking for creative ideas within your discipline, or feel stuck- try doing something very different. Completely unrelated to your focus. That can create inspiration in the field of your main focus.
• Creativity begets creativity.

30 Days of Genius- Kevin Kelly

Kevin's words are in bold. My own comments are in italics

• Technology is part of a long tradition, dating back to the big bang
• Technology is a useful tool. It has been used since the start of time, and is nothing new. What is new is humanity's challenges in coping with it's rapid growth rate within our own lives, and facing the challenges in finding balance between us using it and it owning us.

• Today, there is a young person whose genius is waiting for a technology to be invented right now
• We need to constantly keep innovating. There is a genius somewhere who cannot perform because another genius (maybe you) has not worked hard enough to bring the tools into existence that the former needs. Isn't that a fun thought? Your work today can, through its application by another, change millions of lives.

• Make as many mistakes as possible, and just keep doing it again and again and again and again. Try to fail.
• Do we see a theme among these genius? Try, fail, learn. Try, fail, learn. Try, fail, succeed. Try, fail learn.

• 1000 true fans
• You only need 1000 true fans of your work to live a financially and emotionally fulfilled life. Think about it. 1000 fans who appreciate your work so much they put out $100 a year for it. Bam- that's comfort of the 3%. 

• "The next thing is going to be a collaboration engine"
• The future is about working together better than we currently do. As people create platforms and technologies to unite designers in Poland with engineers in Australia, crossing barriers of distance, profession, and language, the world will leap forward.

• Technology is additive
• Technology is built off of itself. Nothing is new- *poof* it exists. Everything is in steps. So if you want to look forward, first learn to look backward. 

• "Creativity begets creativity" 
• There is not an "amount" of creativity that gets used up over time. The more creative work you do in any discipline, the more creative it makes you in any other.
• Chase's example is "taking pictures with your iPhone can make you a better brain surgeon." How? I have no idea. Ask him, he's the genius. 

• "Any job measured in productivity should be done by robots. Humans should be doing jobs that are inefficient." 
• Yes, technology takes away jobs. Yes, it forces people out. But out of what? Out of jobs that do little of value beyond provide money. There are other, better ways to create the emotional satisfaction of being a part of something. There are better ways to spend time, at any level, then screwing in 100 nails/minute. Once money is taken care of, the challenge becomes how to get people to partake in fulfilling work.
• I've had this thought for a long time. In a utopia, we all live comfortably and work solely on our passions. If, for some, that means sitting on their couch doing nothing, great. That makes differentiating those who care about they do much easier. The difficult part is the transition. If 1 million people in labor-intensive work lose their jobs to go pursue "something higher," how do you pay them, motivate them, support them.

• "Answers are cheap. What is valuable? Questions."
• Answers mean little, because every answer in the world already exists. What doesn't exist, and what can't be "discovered," are questions. Learning to ask the right questions is the most powerful skill to be acquired. 

30 Days of Genius- Lewis Howes

Lewis' words are in bold. My comments are in italics.

• "There could always be something worse"
• Any time you're feeling down, think of what could be worse. The answer is, almost always, a lot. You are never at the bottom of the barrel, and you always have a lot to build off of to move forward.

• "It’s crazy how many options there are to make money"
• You are never limited. The Internet has created a world in which every interest, passion, and idea is an opportunity to make money. Don't minimize their value, and don't tell yourself that you can't make money.

• "Create a challenge with a deadline and a date"
• Very much Napoleon Hill's Think and Grow Rich, set specific challenges and specific deadlines. That is how you get yourself to work towards success. Don't be general, don't be loose with yourself. Make commitments, and stick to them.  

• "What can you achieve in 6 months?"
• 3-6 months is only real amount of time in which you can envision your future and see quick results. 5 and 10 year plans are great. But it's the 6 month timeline on which real progress is made. 

• "Have a team. It’s not fun building something meaningful on your own."
• Boy, do I know it. Teams make successes fun. Teams make ideation fun. Teams make anything fun. Even if your team isn't a set of employees, you can find advisers, supporters, or anyone to be on your side and on your team.

• "Everything stems from a vision."
• Nothing just happens. Everything starts from an idea with a vision, and a lot of work goes towards building it up (and understanding the areas in which the vision will and will not exist).

30 Days of Genius- Ramit Sethi

Ramit's words are in bold. My personal comments are in italics.

• "What’s something you claim you want to do that you don’t actually do?"
• Jeez, this hit me hard. There are so many things we say we want to do, either to ourselves or others. And once we say it, it seems like we're halfway to accomplishing it. But so often, we just don't. For whatever reason, we live a life of excuses. But I know there are things I said I would do that I never did. And what's important is to be honest to oneself about what we are or are not doing. Not critical, just honest.

• "Instead of going 1 to 1000, go from 1 to 1.1"
• Start somewhere, don't expect everything all at once. Doing something is the first step to whatever your end goal is.

• "Losers have goals, winners have systems" -Scott Adams
• Quoting the Dilbert cartoonist, Ramit says that goals are important, but what really matters is processes. If you create systems around your life, the successes will come.

• "There's a game being played around us."
• Yes! The whole world is made up. Everything is a construct of somebody's imagination. Why not make your life built off of what you believe to be true? Do what you want, because the rest of life is built by what others wanted to do, often decades before.

• "Should I do a or b? Yes."
• When faced with two options, the best people excel at both. Should I focus on academics or build a business? Yes. Should I work out or read more? Yes. Don't compromise one passion for another- excel at them both. 

• "Information is useful not in the novelty, but in the utility"
• Education for education's sake is awesome. But what is really most important is the knowledge we can apply to our lives. 

• "Be a value, not a commodity."
• Don't sell yourself short. Come off as someone with enough value to leverage getting what you want. Don't give discounts, don't give yourself away. You are valuable, and you should sell yourself as such.

30 Days of Genius- Sir-Mix-a-Lot

Sir's words are in bold. My own comments are in italics.

• "I just went nuts, chasing it chasing it chasing it. Not trying to monetize anything, just chasing what I wanted to do"
• You've got to want what you want, and you've got to want it bad. As long as you can make ends meet, you should be chasing your passion. Money comes second, passion comes first.

• "Work is my break"
• If you love what you do, you don't need breaks or vacations. You go back to work, and that in itself is relaxing.

• "Hard work is merely preparation for a lucky day"
• I believe in luck. And I find that the harder I work, the more I have of it. Thomas Edison, biotch.

• "When you’re out of things to chase, you’re done."
• Nothing original here- just affirmation of what everyone with any success tells you. You've got to remain hungry. There is always improvement to be found, progress to be made.

• "No matter how much money you have, we’re all buried in the same dirt"
• Rings of Marcus Aurelius' "Meditations." Money is nothing at the end. Pay the bills, have a bit of comfort. Beyond that, focus on what you enjoy.

• "Do what you truly love, not what you think you’re supposed to do because you made it"
• Mr. Baby Got Back is all about passion. He knows plenty of people with plenty of money who are not in the field that they love. They chase the money, not the dream.

• Stay hypersensitive to opportunity. People think they never get the opportunity, but they’re just blind to what’s in front of them. 
• Opportunity does not present itself with a ribbon and a chorus of angels. Anything can be an opportunity, and it is important to be ready for it at all times. 

30 Days of Genius- Gabby Bernstein

Gabby Bernstein's words are in bold. My comments are in italics.

• "The wound is the place where the light enters me"
• Quoting someone wise and probably religious, Gabby references her dark past and history with drugs as a time in which she was able find within herself an opportunity to clean her life up. You can't be in the clouds without sometimes being in the dirt.

• "The only way to survive sometimes is to have a meditation practice" 
• As a society, we're hitting our wit's end. Competition is getting harder, people are working more, and the pressure on us to succeed is getting higher and higher. We need to appreciate the value of not-doing something in the moment in order to manage a life of constantly doing things.

• "Do something, not nothing"
• Not related to the last quote- this is about how to work. If you want to succeed, or experiment, or anything, you need to be doing something. Act. Do. Create. Put it out there. And then you learn, fix, and repeat. 

• "Keep it simple, but be consistent" 
• Don't try to take on a challenge all at once. Do small things, over and over and over. 
• "I'm more impressed with someone who meditates for 1 minute a day for a year than with someone who does an immersive 3 day meditative retreat and doesn't ever do it again." 

• There are so many people trapped in the cycle of what other people want for them. Trust your intuition.
• Don't do what others tell you is the right thing for you. Listen to their advice, but don't take it unless your intuition guides you toward it. Your intuition is what tells you what will make you happy.

• I’m seeking creative solutions
• Make that phrase your mantra. Constantly repeat it to yourself, and soon creative solutions will begin to manifest in your mind and your life.

• When the time is on you, the pressure will be off
• Amazing thought. Get into the battle, and you will be ready to face the challenges that arrive.

30 Days of Genius- Jared Leto

Jared Leto's words are in bold. My comments are in italics.

• "Don’t wait for permission to jump into action"
• Just do the things you want to do. Today, as opposed to the last hundred thousand years of our existence, we can do things without permission from others. Screw it, just do it.

• "We all have the ability- and the right- to succeed gloriously and fail gloriously"
• Failing is a theme of this series. We can all be as high or as low as we want to be. And often, we are both. But we have the ability to do anything as well as we want to! BAM! INSPIRATION!

• "The deeper that you dive, the greater everything will be. The reward, the contribution that you’re able to make, the truth, the authenticity"
• Commitment to somethings makes you greater at it. Jared was talking about acting, but applied it more broadly. Anything you fully commit to, you will find an honest passion and truth within that activity.

• "You don’t have to do things well for them to be worthy"
• Don't let barriers to greatness act as barriers to experimentation. Do things that are fun, or interesting, or different just because you feel like it. You will learn something.

• "I only succeed a little bit because I fail a lot" 
• No surprises there for anyone who has listened to any of these sessions. Success is the opposite end of the hourglass from failure. One does not live without the other. 

• "Just keep making art. Let other people decide if it’s good or bad. And while they’re deciding, just keep making art"
• At Andy Warhol’s first show in Los Angeles, he sold 0 works. He then went on to be the best known and most successful artist of the last 100 years. 
• Do what you love to do. Experiment, create, put things out there. Do not think about judgement or feedback, just explore the limits of your art.

30 Days of Genius- Kelly Starrett

Kelly Starrett's words are in bold. My comments are in italics. 

• "What does it mean to be human?"
• This is Kelly's "physic's first" question when it comes to understanding how to take advantage of the human body. Being human means moving. It means constant changes in body position. It means loose limbs and active lifestyles. It means going back to the human of the year 1800, because that is the real human- the one of our first 100,000 years, not our most recent 200.

• "The body influences the mind"
• Smile. Do you feel better? Stand up tall. Do you feel more confident? Slow your breathing. Do you feel more relaxed? Understanding the body- and maintaing it- is important to keeping the mind sharp.

• :Physical literacy in movement"
• Understanding how movement works helps to maintain bodily health. A basic understanding of the muscular structure of the human body makes stretching, running, walking, or sitting more thoughtful and valuable.

• "I can contribute to the health of this system"
• Two takeaways to 80% of health improvements. Move more, and drink more water. Your body is a system, but your actions and decisions can improve it.

• "If you stand at work, you burn as many calories as you would running 33 marathons in a year"
• Umm. No comment needed?

• "If you need to sit, sit correctly. If you can stand, do that." 
• Standing permits movement, and movement is what it means to be human. Sitting has to happen at times- but at all others, take initiative and stand. Walking meetings. Standing desks. Eat standing up (when not at a black tie fancy restaurant).

• Don’t be heroic, be consistent
• You don't need to be running Iron Mans or trying out for the NBA. You don't need to be at 8% body fat and modeling for magazines. You need to do the little things for a very long time, and you'll see some of the greatest results of your life.

30 Days of Genius- Gary Vaynerchuk

Gary Vaynerchuk's words are in bold. My comments are in italics. 

• "You’re not going to become more talented. The only thing you can control is time."
• No matter how hard you work, you likely won't become the greatest anything in the world. 10,000 hours of photography will make you a better photographer, but not the best. However, you won't get any better without putting the time into it, so don't let anything stop you.

• "If you complain, you need to look at what you’re spending your time on."
• We all have the same amount of time in a day. We each just use it differently. If things aren't going well in business, start calculating how much time you spend watching TV. If things aren't great in your marriage, ask yourself how much time you spend with your partner.

• "You’re so lucky. You could have been an ant."
• The most meta of facts. We're all humans. We're all in the year 2016. Many of us are in the United States or another first world democracy. The freedom we have to explore, experiment, try, work, thrive, live, exist, create, fail, succeed- anything- is unprecedented in the history of any species in the entire world. 

• "Never let follower count become a self estimate barometer. Become a craftsman."  
• Create content regardless of who follows you. If you're a photographer who missed the bandwagon on Instagram, that doesn't mean you shouldn't start now. Even if you never hit thousands of followers, you'll be more prepared and more talented when the next tool comes around.

• Do you love your craft, scaling your craft, or just the money?
• There is a difference between the man who loves to code, the one who loves building software businesses, and the one who loves the enormous money he can make through his business. Not to say that one is better or worse than the other- you just need to recognize which one you are and use that to play to your strengths and happiness.  

• You’ve got to play the small clubs to play the stadiums.
• You won't start off being paid $10K a speech. Your first artwork won't sell for $5K. Your first blog post won't get 1000 views. But your second will get closer to it. And then your third. Play the small clubs, and you'll get invited to the stadiums.

• "Never do the next job for the same price you did the last one for."
• Always expect more from yourself, and others will do the same for you. Confidence and determined self-expectation of growth will lead to the world having higher expectations for you. 

30 Days of Genius- Richard Branson

Richard Branson's words are in bold. My comments are in italics.

• "My greatest fear in life is saying no to something and then regretting it."
• Preach, Richard. Preach. Say yes to everything. If you don't, you'll regret it. 

• "Screw it, just do it."
• Act first, analyze later. Do you wonder about what something would be like? Do it. Have an idea? Make it happen. Then figure out the rest later. 

• "The first rule of business is to protect the downside." 
• Contrary to popular opinion, entrepreneurs are not risk takers. You shouldn't be betting the company with every decision. Be sure to protect your assets and keep the business afloat.

• "I’m interested in life, generally"
• Virgin brands represent over 400 companies. How Richard justifies that is saying that he is interested in every aspect of the human experience. By finding ways to improve music, airlines, health, food, and journalism all at the same time, each is an engaging task full of discover for him. 

• "I’m a good listener. A good leader needs to be a good listener. I know what I think, so I don’t need to listen to my own voice." 
• You won't learn by speaking. You should always be listening to the opinions of others. Take notes during all meetings- that's how things get done and how you learn. 

• "There is not much of a difference between a business person and an artist. You start off with a blank canvas, and have to get all of the little details right."
• A concept I heard put in different words before. "Every entrepreneur is an artist and every artist is an entrepreneur." Create things, then sell them. It's a simple maxim but a intricate task.

• "If something is run in a stuffy way, one shouldn’t be frightened of un-stuffy-fying it."
• Richard is known as one of the most fun CEOs in the world. And fun can be a blue ocean strategy. If something is boring, make it fun. The world will appreciate it. 

• Learn the art of delegation
• Great leadership is about finding people better than you are and inspiring them to work with and for you. You can't do everything- and you don't want to. Learn to identify the things that should be delegated and the people who you can delegate them to. Then do it. 

30 Days of Genius- Brené Brown

Brené Brown's words are in bold. My comments are in italics.

• The only thing I know for sure about being courageous is that if you’re brave enough often enough- you’re gonna fail (this is not just a guarantee. It’s a determined fact)
• Echoing Seth Godin, Brené reminds herself that failure is an inevitable part of success. High risk, high reward. Reminding yourself that failure is an inevitable part of courage will make it less hurtful and less of a blockade when you do fail. And don't worry- you certainly will.

• "It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat." 
• Umm, okay best quote ever. Be in the arena. Go strive and achieve and fall and be defeated. Because the sidelines are safe and boring. The arena- where gladiators produce music or create art or start businesses- is where the successes come. And ~side note~ it's also whre all the fun hangs out.

• "What is actually going on here? What am I feeling, what do I know for sure?"
• It is important to ask yourself these questions before acting and before judging. Too often we extrapolate the very few facts we do know into an baseless emotional cascade. When noticing any emotion within ourselves- fear, discomfort, joy- think about what you know, and decide if your emotions are justified. 

• There is a physiological response to emotion. All you need to do is get curious about it.
• Are your emotions making you sweat in nervousness? Shake in anger? Curl up in fear? Think about what your body is doing, and ask yourself why. Don't let emotions control your body without you understanding what is happening first. Be curious, as with everything else.

• What story are you telling yourself?
• Referencing the last two comments- what are you making up based off of what little you know? What is the story you are making up about yourself? Is it about your inability to do good work? About your lack of worth as a friend or partner? Recognize it, then think about where it's coming from and if it has any merit.

• If you own the story, you can write the ending
• Once you can recognize the story, you can control it. Mad at yourself? Change your mindset. Think that your manager hates you? Find the facts that make you think that, or come up to her and discuss the facts that you know and make you feel such. 

• You’ve got something that only you can bring to the world
• Don't be someone else. Take advantage of the fact that you're the only person in the history of the world who has your set of experiences. Embrace that. Use that.

• He or she who has the greatest capacity for discomfort rises the fastest
• Similar to Tim Ferriss' Comfort Challenges where he asks his readers to do things that will make them uncomfortable (ask for 10% off at the coffee shop, ask two people for their phone numbers). Recognize that if you can handle the most difficult situations, you can rise through them the easiest. 

• The only thing that experience gives you is a little grace that whispers in your ear “you’ve been in the dark before, you know your way through. Stay in the dark."
• Experience doesn't make you infallible. It simply means that you understand yourself well enough to know there are dark times, and there is no success without struggle.

• "You will fail."
• Remind yourself again and again- you will fail. And that is an essential ingredient to success and great work. This is not putting yourself down- it's motivating yourself through the positivity of knowing the future.

• "The best ideas can only be born with very trusting midwives."
• Create a safe environment in which to experiment and share ideas. You need partners who are risk takers and supportive. Every team member should be relied upon to be supportive of all others and brave enough to speak their mind.

That's a lot of notes. I guess I liked what Brené had to say.

30 Days of Genius- Stefan Sagmeister

Stefan Sagmeister's words are in bold. My comments are in italics.

• "Design something that helps somebody or delights somebody"
• Projects should be one or the other- beneficial or joyous. If it is not doing one of those, what is it's true purpose? What is the designer's?

• "Projects should live on their quality" 
• The best work doesn't require the most marketing to promote it. Producing excellent products is the best way to selling them. If you create a good film, people will watch it for a long time. If you create a bad film, people will watch it only as long as you market it- but even then, they will not be helped or delighted.

• "I am the world’s #1 expert on my own happiness"
• No one knows better than you do what can and should make you happy. Everyone has a guess, but no one has the answer. Think about what it is that brings about your joy, and pursue it. 

• "You develop a personal style by not worrying about it. A fast feedback loop is essential to developing your style."
• Do not stress about what your personal style is until you have the ability to receive feedback on it. And once you are receiving consistent feedback from people you trust, adjust your work between your preferences and the audiences' until you find the style that brings about the most success.
• Stefan's emphasis on feedback's relation to personal style is interestingly different from others (Tim Ferriss, Brené Brown) who say that you should create the work that you value without altering to the opinions of others, because that creates the most honest work. I suppose a mix- trust in your work and appreciation of the feedback your audience (ie. benefactors and customers) provide- leads to happiness within large scale success.

• Take 1 year off from work every 7 years- it helps increase creativity and abilities
• Stefan takes one full year off of work for every seven he works. The first time he did this, he was afraid of what people would think, how they would look at his work, if he would ever get hired again. There was a great fear.
• Once he committed to his year off, he found that his ability to design and create was elevated to a point where his return to work produced the greatest results. And, because customers couldn't have him for one year, they all flocked to him eagerly upon his return. 
• This is similar thinking to Arianna Huffington's assertion that the best ideas come out of stillness.

• "5 projects is the ideal number of projects for a creative to be working on"- Chase Jarvis
• Too many projects cause distraction, too few can silo the creative into one mindset, which is restricting. Balancing 5 projects allows the mind to shift from one to the other and have projects in very different arenas benefit each other.
• My own work spans 3-4 creative projects at any point. I see tangible benefits across the borders often enough to believe in the power of creating diversity in the mind.

• Think about the project from the point of view that has nothing to do with the project
• Having trouble designing a book cover? Think about a glass of water, and draw parallels (can you book be transparent? Fluid? Does it even need to be a rectangular shape?) 
• Forcing your mind to attack ideas from directions they have never before been viewed will create great, unique work. Or it won't. Regardless, the thinking process will be more creative, original, and enjoyable. And those three factors can definitely lead to great work. 

30 Days of Genius- Levar Burton

Levar Burton's words are in bold. My comments are in italics.

• "My experience was that life was really linear in nature. But this year, I have experienced that life is actually circular. It is possible to come back to the same place you were on the wheel, but as a different person."
• A theme in Levar's career has been openness to opportunity and diversity of experience. When you think one chapter of your life has been closed for good, you're being short-sighted. Be open to all experiences, and you may return to a familiar place as a different person.
• Levar uses his return to the concept of Roots, 40 years after the show originally aired, as an example. He started the show as a 19 year old doing his first real job. He returns as an Executive Producer with four decades of experience in the professional world as a black man in America that he can apply to the new Roots to align it with the ideas of today's audience. 

• "All of the decisions in my life and my career have been guided by one thing. Passion. Find out that which you are passionate about, and you have a key to what’s going to make you happy."
• Levar emphasizes the point that passion brings more than just happiness- it brings the ability to fight through hard times and work towards a brighter future. Passion for what you do makes longevity in your work possible. 
• "Put in your time, do the work. Become your own advocate. You have to not only be the artist and creator, you have to be the promoter. You have to hustle. One’s hustle is a sign of the degree to which one is really passionate about getting it done. "
• Hustle is passion's offspring, and is the second necessary ingredient to success. Just because you love your writing, your company, your brand, that doesn't mean people will start coming to it. Passion just means you enjoy doing it. To spread the word, you need to hustle.

• "It takes energy as well as presence to change the world. You can’t change the world with an absentee point of view." 
• Levar discusses getting in touch with himself as an individual in the years after Roots went off the air. He needed to understand what he believed to be true. He mentions two strategies to find presence:
• 1. Ask yourself the tough questions. Dig deeper. Are you working as hard as you say you are? Are your actions mirror reflections of your words, or are they the muddled reflection of a puddle?
• 2. Find a group of friends to be critics on your personal life. If you are veering away from the person you want to be, you need friends to will be able to recognize that and tell it to you in a way that you believe. 

• "The world is full of experiences. You just have to expose yourself to enough before you figure out where you land."
• Experiment. Try new things. Get to know yourself. 

• "You can never predict the end of the story in the first chapter."
• Don't make assumptions about the future, they're likely very wrong. You can only connect the dots looking backwards. If you have an end goal, keep working towards it. Though things may seem blight in the beginning, all you can control is your passion and your hustle. With enough of each, you can get to a finished story you're proud of. 

• "Imagination is the superpower of the human being." 
• Look around. Everything you see, in the physical world and the societal, was just an idea in someone's mind. Chairs, bridges, democracy, school, school buildings. It was all just an idea. What ideas do you have?

30 Days of Genius- Arianna Huffington

Arianna Huffington's words are in bold. My comments are in italics.

• "It’s not about exclusivity anymore. It’s about ubiquity. You produce content, you want it to be everywhere."
• Opportunity comes when everyone is helped. Huffington Post's world of journalism is a reflection of, or perhaps a leader in, the value of sharing. Content is made more powerful when it is globally sourced and globally distributed. We can extrapolate this to ourselves and our work. Help yourself, and few will care. Help others, and the world will notice. 

• "Remember- you are not your job."
• When asked “what do you do?” or “who are you?,” we often answer immediately with how we make money. And because of this deep association between ourselves and our jobs, we pour the entirety of our effort into something that should be just one role, not the entire cast, of the play that is our life. We are our interests, our friends, our knowledge, and our health are just as much- or perhaps more than- we are our job. Find the balance you need to remember this. 

• "We’ve convinced people that exercise and nutrition are important. The third and most important leg of that stool is sleep." 
• Today’s world is hyper-competitve, and it creates the illusion that every minute spent sleeping is a minute lost working. “I’ll sleep when I’m dead” and “you snooze you lose” prevail through our society, giving sleep a misleading and unfortunate reputation as a crutch for the weak. This is more than just wrong- it is dangerous.
• Sleep’s benefits are everywhere. Dreams can be the source of imaginative inspiration. Sleep revitalizes our systems to make us more productive when awake. It is scientifically more vital to our overall health than even exercise or nutrition. A lack of sleep causes urges for ruining nutrition and dangerous over-extension during exercise
• We take better care of our phones than we do of ourselves. We know how much battery our phone has at all times, and if it ever falls low, we freak out. Why do we treat the metal in our pocket with more tender respect than we do ourselves?
• Don’t punish yourself. You are not “losing” if you sleep more. Working longer is not the same (and can be the opposite) or working better. Prioritizing sleep will make you better when shifting focus on other parts of life.
• Routine is as important with sleep as with everything. Arianna’s most important advice- get away from your technology before going to sleep. It ruins dreams and sleep cycles and causes unnecessary stresses. 

• "The best ideas come out of stillness"
  • Decrease inputs to increase outputs has been a theme of the 30 DOG series. Arianna uses Steve Jobs’ reference to zen meditation and Bill Gates’ walks through the woods as the inspiration for their best ideas. Quiet- in the form of sleep, meditation, or solitude- is an essential component for creativity.

30 Days of Genius- Tim Ferriss

Ah, Tim Tim Talk Talk. We meet again!

Tim Ferriss's words are in bold. My personal comments are in italics. 

• "Work on projects that, even if they are viewed as a failure to the outside world, give you skills that carry over to your next project."
• Tim borrows from Scott Adams, creator of the Dilbert comic, when he discusses "systems thinking," or the pursuit of skills. If, in your current activities, you are not gaining any new skills that you can tangibly refer to in future endeavors, you are missing an opportunity to do so. Every assignment is an opportunity for education, and every endeavor, regardless of success in the market, should be a success in personal development.

• "What would this look like if it were easy?"
• An extension of Tim's constant critique of the self-prescribed 'busy-ness', it is important to bring things to their simplest level. Whatever you are trying to pursue- what would would make it easier? Want to write a book? Write 2 crappy pages a day. Want to start a podcast? Remove all editing. Want to have good customers? Set your rules and if anyone doesn't like them, you shouldn't care if they leave.
• "In negotiation, the one who cares the least, wins." 

• "The feeling that you are winning is a precursor to actually winning. Celebrate the small wins."
• Make things easy for yourself. Build confidence. If learning to code, you'll quit if you can't turn the page blue, and if you don't appreciate how awesome that small thing is. If starting a podcast, you need to celebrate the first 10 listeners. Go have a drink. You've earned it.
• Meditation and gratitude are two tools used to be appreciative of what you have today. Notice the beautiful clouds outside, and be grateful you can live beneath them. Notice how far you've come in your learning of "insert thing here." And be proud of yourself, no matter how little it seems to be.
• Comparison is the root of unhappiness. Don't compare to anyone except your past self. 

• "Creativity is an infinite resource. The more you spend, the more you have."
• A Chase Jarvis quote that I love. Work on your photography, you'll be more observant and a better podcaster. Work on your podcasting and you'll develop a taste for production to make better music. Creativity crosses disciplines.

• "Do things just for the hell of it- and make them as absurd as possible."
• Opportunities come from experimentation, and success comes from enjoyment. If you don't try something just for shits and gigs, you won't open doors for yourself. And if you don't have fun, you won't succeed. 

• "Wake up earlier."
• When asked for his advice to people who have two kids, a full time job, and 6 other things on their plate and just don't have the time to do whatever they dream of doing, Tim has simple advice: wake up earlier. We all have the same 24 hours to work with. How will you spend yours?
• Khaled Hosseini was working full time as a doctor and father of two children. He would wake up early every day, no matter how tired he was or what he needed to get done, and ensure that he had 45 minutes to write. And what came of it? Not much. Just the New York Times bestseller, "The Kite Runner," which sold over 7 million copies in the US alone.

• The importance of routine.
• A routine helps build habits, and habits lead to success. Knowing the 4 things you're going to do every morning immediately upon waking up ensures that you do them efficiently and effectively and, perhaps most important, consistently.

• "You can choose the record."
• Everyone, including the most successful, has someone (or a voice inside their head) constantly nagging at them. Everyone is influenced by sudden flashes of emotion. What is important to remember is that these are completely within our control. We can choose what we feel, how we act, and what we think. We can choose how our mind works, and what records play in it.

• "Once you have the constraint to do more with less, only then can you do more with more."
• Tim places constraints on himself like removing the word "pretty" from his vocabulary, or limiting his blog posts to 500 words, or dancing tango with one arm behind his back. Once you can do that well, you can fully appreciate the advantage of re-introducing additions.

• "You’re the average of the 5 people you associate with most."
• We are a different version of ourselves with everyone we meet. And who we truly build ourselves to be is a mosaic of the 5 versions of ourselves we spend the most time being. 

FUCK! Sorry, it felt wrong to do a Tim Ferriss writeup without cursing at least once. Long Island baby!