“I would have been here ten minutes earlier if I hadn’t been stuck behind that Meanderthal.”
This article first appeared on Seth's Blog
Unlike natural phenomena like orbiting planets or geologic formations, there are no consistent and perfect laws of human behavior.If we’re talking about groups of people, if we’re teaching, leading or trying to predict future behavior (all three are related) then we’re making a ge...Read More Source: Seth's Blog
This article first appeared on Seth's Blog
How do you act when you’re not thinking about how you act? When no one is looking and when you’re just doing what you’re doing…That’s the automatic self. No narrative, no second-guessing.Now, here’s the real question:Has your automatic self changed since you we...Read More Source: Seth's Blog
This article first appeared on Seth's Blog
Just about everyone over the age of fifteen, anywhere in the world, engages in the market in some way. We need things and we buy them.That’s not what shopping is.Shopping is the act of imagining what you might want. It’s the thrilling but risky exchange of money for something th...Read More Source: Seth's Blog
This article first appeared on Seth's Blog
At enlightened companies, leaders are smart enough to ask, “how do we make things better for our customers?” They realize that this simple ratchet leads to loyalty, word of mouth and more customers.At monopolies or companies that seek to act like them, the question is, “how do we ...Read More Source: Seth's Blog
This article first appeared on Seth's Blog
REM was one of the most respected indy rock bands. You’d think that a group that somehow managed to thread the needle between whatever authentic means to them and huge popular success could walk away from traditional measures of who’s up and who’s not…In a long-ago Rolling S...Read More Source: Seth's Blog
This article first appeared on Seth's Blog
If Harper Lee had written To Kill a Mockingbird today, there’s no doubt that the salesforce and the marketers would have pushed for a catchier title, probably with better SEO.And it’s hard to imagine that Waiting for Godot would have ever been performed on Broadway.On a similar ...Read More Source: Seth's Blog
This article first appeared on Seth's Blog
That’s how you know that they’re not obvious.When smart, committed people disagree about the answer to a question, you’ve found a question worth pursuing and a discussion worth having.Read More Source: Seth's Blog
This article first appeared on Seth's Blog
It might not be autumn where you live, but the iconography of the large orange pumpkin travels around the world.People carve faces into them, stick a candle inside and use them to ward off the darkness.Perhaps we could consider writing on one instead. Inscribing all the things we’re g...Read More Source: Seth's Blog
This article first appeared on Seth's Blog
Ideas are like that.The successful editor, curator or entrepreneur doesn’t go hunting ideas to kill them, but to celebrate them, identify them and dance with them.And a brutal, all-out frontal attack won’t work. It’s not about raising a ton of money or insisting that the w...Read More Source: Seth's Blog
This article first appeared on Seth's Blog
It’s entirely possible to believe that your ideas come from the muse, and your job is to simply amplify them. And that successful people are lucky because the muse keeps giving them useful and powerful ideas.I’m not sure that’s what successful people do. All of us get an endless s...Read More Source: Seth's Blog
This article first appeared on Seth's Blog
Google is not your friend, it’s a tool.It’s been 2,702 days since they shut down Google Reader and people still remember.Or consider that Google can shut you out of all their services with no recourse or appeal possible. All your data, photos, calendars, emails… gone.But yes, yo...Read More Source: Seth's Blog
This article first appeared on Seth's Blog
The Ngram tracks words used in books over the last 200 years. Here’s what a million authors and a billion readers think:
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This article first appeared on Seth's Blog
I have a little wooden plaque with those three words on it.And of course, the answer is often “yes.”If you’re waiting on an unavoidable delay, then you’re not stalling. If you’re making things better in a way that the customer will notice, then you’re not stalli...Read More Source: Seth's Blog
This article first appeared on Seth's Blog
This is the Inuit word for “sitting together in the darkness, quietly, waiting for something creative or important to occur.”Of course, this works.The only difficult part is doing it. We’re buzzy people, inundated with noise, using it to hide from the important work that’s ...Read More Source: Seth's Blog
This article first appeared on Seth's Blog
Belief happens when we combine community with emotion. It’s a way for us to see and understand the world, at the same time that we engage with some of the people around us. Belief is a symptom of shared connection, and community makes us human.Reality, on the other hand, is widely experie...Read More Source: Seth's Blog
This article first appeared on Seth's Blog
An attitude of entitlement doesn’t increase the chances you’ll get what you want.And it ruins the joy of the things you do get.Win or lose, you lose.Read More Source: Seth's Blog
This article first appeared on Seth's Blog
That’s easy to say but hard to visualize.Even a puddle has more drops than we can count.It’s got to be difficult to be a drop.And yet…What else could the ocean be made of?Read More Source: Seth's Blog
This article first appeared on Seth's Blog
Of course, every rule, every announcement and every policy is in place until further notice.We say it as a form of throat clearing. A way to make the announcement seem more official and specific. We repeat the redundant as a form of gift wrap, a way to be sure that it feels both urgent and impe...Read More Source: Seth's Blog
This article first appeared on Seth's Blog
Which is better: Feeling like you were right the first time or actually being correct now?When we double down on our original estimate, defend our sunk costs and rally behind the home team, we’re doing this because it’s satisfying to feel as though we were right all along.On the...Read More Source: Seth's Blog
This article first appeared on Seth's Blog
Then everyone else would find it easy as well. Which would make it awfully difficult to do important work, work that stands out, work that people would go out of their way to find.When difficulties arise, it might very well be good news. Because those difficulties may dissuade all the people wh...Read More Source: Seth's Blog
This article first appeared on Seth's Blog
We all have them.“If ____ happens, then I’ll do ____.”If this emergency passes, then I’ll take a break.If this customer closes, then I’ll invest in my education.If we get this finished, then we’ll focus on that.Too often, the ifthen is nothing but a stall. As...Read More Source: Seth's Blog
This article first appeared on Seth's Blog
Standing at my desk this summer, it had just turned 10 am, and I realized that I’d already:Heard from an old friend, engaged with three team members on two continents, read 28 blogs across the spectrum AND found out about the weather and the news around the world.Half my life ago, in a simil...Read More Source: Seth's Blog
This article first appeared on Seth's Blog
When Ignaz Semmelweis pioneered statistics in order to save countless women from dying in childbirth, his fellow doctors refused to believe him. They ignored his work, didn’t wash their hands and it was another twenty years before his insights on the spread of disease were adopted.We live...Read More Source: Seth's Blog
This article first appeared on Seth's Blog
Being smart often has little to do with being persuasive.And yet we often assume that one leads to the other.We spend years and years educating people to do well on tests in the belief that this will make them smart.And we assume that they’ll figure out the persuasive stuff on th...Read More Source: Seth's Blog
This article first appeared on Seth's Blog
Organized sports often turn into a play about status roles and dominance. Bullfighting, pro wrestling, even hockey, are about who’s winning, who’s losing and who’s in charge.But they are also theatres of affiliation. The fans celebrate their unity as well as their divisions. T...Read More Source: Seth's Blog
