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Author Archives: AJ Kessler
Failure Is Good
Most people are afraid of failure. I know I certainly am at times. The problem is, failure is often the best way to learn. When you succeed at something difficult or amorphous, you usually don’t know why: a lot of … Continue reading
Posted in Advice, Creativity, Food For Thought, Inspiration, Persuasion, Quotes, Self-Improvement
Tagged Failure, Mark Cuban, Oprah Winfrey, Richard Branson
1 Comment
Ego Is Good
From Seth Godin’s Poke The Box: Somewhere along the way, ego became a nasty word. It’s not. When our name is on a project, our ego pushes us over the hump and drives us to do even better work. Ego … Continue reading
Posted in Advice, Art, Creativity, Food For Thought, Inspiration, Persuasion, Quotes, Self-Improvement
Tagged Ego, Greed, Poke The Box, Seth Godin, Vanity
4 Comments
If You’re Not Curious, You’re Boring
I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious. -Albert Einstein I really believe curiosity is everything. Those who aren’t curious about the world are boring and never accomplish anything great. I can understand how people can go through … Continue reading
Posted in Advice, Art, Creativity, Food For Thought, Inspiration, Quotes, Self-Improvement
Tagged Albert Einstein, Curiosity, Interesting, Interestingness, Jay-Z, John Mayer, Seth Godin
3 Comments
Now Is A Great Time To Be Young
It seems like every day that I hear how hard it is to be young these days. There’s no jobs, students are laden with debt, etc. etc. This seems like total bullshit to me. For example, this NY Times piece … Continue reading
Posted in Advice, Creativity, Food For Thought, Inspiration, Self-Improvement
Tagged Future, Kids, Opportunity, Startup, Work
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Enjoying Museums
I visited the Leopold Museum by myself yesterday, because no one wanted to join me. The museum was very nice, and absolutely worth a visit if you’re in Vienna. It houses the largest collection of Egon Schiele’s work in the … Continue reading
Posted in Advice, Art, Creativity, Food For Thought, Inspiration, Tips, Travel
Tagged Egon Schiele, Gustav Klimt, Leopold, Museum
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Overwhelm
In Vienna this week, I’ve had the opportunity to check out quite a few churches. In the middle of the old city there are maybe a dozen spectacular churches, sporting everything from Gothic to super modern architecture. The biggest and … Continue reading
Posted in Aesthetics, Art, Food For Thought, Travel
Tagged Church, Color, Overwhelm, Steve Jobs, Vienna
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If You’re Going to Jail, Get There Early
Lo and behold, judges aren’t always rational. It turns out that judges hearing parole requests start out the day granting about 65% of them. These numbers dwindle down to about 0% right before a judges break, then pop back up … Continue reading
Posted in Food For Thought, Law, Persuasion, Rationality
Tagged Judge, Justice, Law, Rationality, Trial
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Hired Guns
When Alex Rodriguez wanted a new contract to reflect the fact that he may end up as the all time leader in HR, hits, RBIs, and runs scored, he didn’t negotiate the deal himself. He hired super-agent Scott Boras, who … Continue reading
Posted in Advice, Food For Thought, Negotiation, Persuasion, Self-Improvement
Tagged CAA, Deals, Movies, Negotiation, Opportunity Cost, Scott Boras, Sports
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Being Owned
I’m not in show business because I don’t have to go to the meetings, I’m just not a part of it, I don’t belong to it. When you “belong” to something. You want to think about that word, “belong.” People … Continue reading
Posted in Food For Thought, Quotes, Self-Improvement
Tagged Belonging, Clubs, George Carlin, Groups, Organizations, Ownership
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Trouble Focusing? Clean Your Workspace
This is an interesting study from the University of Princeton’s Neuroscience Institute: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21228167 Multiple stimuli present in the visual field at the same time compete for neural representation by mutually suppressing their evoked activity throughout visual cortex, providing a neural … Continue reading
Posted in Advice, Creativity, Quotes, Self-Improvement
Tagged Clutter, Focus, Mind, MRI, Neuroscience
2 Comments
Being Done
The point of being done is not to finish, but to get other things done. – Cult of Done That feeling of completing some big project is fantastic. It feels like you’ve pushed a giant stone off your chest. It … Continue reading
Posted in Advice, Creativity, Food For Thought, Inspiration, Quotes, Self-Improvement
Tagged Cult of Done, Finish, Finishing, Graduating, Skills
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Short and Sweet
I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead. -Mark Twain Three Sentences (http://three.sentenc.es/) is an intriguing solution to a problem many people don’t even recognize exists. Emails are often too long, especially … Continue reading
Posted in Advice, Creativity, Food For Thought, Quotes, Self-Improvement
Tagged Brevity, e-mail, Mark Twain, Pascal, wit
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Sugar is Killing Us
I have a massive sweet tooth. In the last 72 hours, I’ve had four Sprinkles cupcakes, half a bag of Trolli Apple Rings, about 3/4 of a pint of gelato, apple strudel with whipped cream and ice cream, plus hearty … Continue reading
Trust
Landed in Veinna, Austria this morning. I got the immediate feeling of safety, even though the train ticket machine warned about using unlicensed cabs and limos. I don’t know what it was exactly, maybe it’s a totally false sense of … Continue reading
Fuck You. Pay Me.
Though there’s some stuff in here I don’t necessarily agree with, a worthy watch for any creative: 2011/03 Mike Monteiro | F*ck You. Pay Me. from San Francisco Creative Mornings on Vimeo.
Posted in Advice, Art, Business, Law, Photography, Psychology, Quotes, Video
Tagged Fuck You, Law, Photography
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