You’ve got to get up every morning with a smile on your face
And show the world all the love in your heart
Then people gonna treat you better
You’re gonna find, yes, you will
That you’re beautiful as you feel
~ Carole King, ‘Beautiful’ (Tapestry 1971)
Listening and dancing with Ella this morning to one of my favourite albums, this chorus stuck with me. Perfect advice for mummas to share with their little girls.
We don’t go on because we’re ready, we go on because it’s 11.30.
~ Lorne Michaels (creator & producer, Saturday Night Live) in conversation with Alec Baldwin on WNYC’s Here’s The Thing.
A great reminder about the power of deadlines to create focus and get your work out there, rather than waiting to get everything ‘right’.
You need to be around people that believe in you on many different levels. This is the place. Everyone does believe that you can create change, you can make a big impact, and that you can do it in a short amount of time. And that it’s going to be profitable and they’ll invest in you and make it happen. And it is just so inspirational.
~ Virginia Klausmeier (CEO, Sylvatex) in NPR’s story on America’s Magnet For Innovation, And Investments, Silicon Valley.
We spent a few days in Silicon Valley on our recent trip, visiting some of Jason’s clients/connections at the Stanford d.school and sitting in on part of a 500 Startups UX bootcamp session. One of the things that we both really noticed was the confident attitude of everyone we met. Confidence in themselves and in us. Not an arrogance or competitiveness (somewhat surprisingly), just an amazing amount of self-belief that they could build companies, create products and form connections. So when I heard this quote, I found myself nodding. Although my personal experience in the Valley was brief, this sums up the vibe precisely.
There’s no competitive advantage today in knowing more than the person next to you. The world doesn’t care. The world cares about what you can do with what you know – do you have the skill, do you have the will.
~ Tony Wagner (via Explore)
Life is too short to waste it with people who don’t get it, whatever “it” may be for you, so make sure you surround yourself with people who do.
~ Xenios Thrasyvoulou (quoted in Bob Sutton’s post on The Power of the People Around You)
3. Process is more important than outcome.
When the outcome drives the process we will only ever go to where we’ve already been. If process drives outcome we may not know where we’re going, but we will know we want to be there.
~ From Bruce Mau’s brilliant Incomplete Manifesto for Growth
And I saw how, if you steadily worked at something, what you don’t know gradually erodes and what you do know slowly grows and at some point you’ve gained a degree of mastery. What you know becomes what you are. You know photography and you are a photographer. You know writing and you are a writer.
Mary Jo Bang: On Learning, Self-Discipline, and Taking the Road Less Traveled
