Asking someone to be “more creative” is like asking someone to be “more honest.” What we really mean is something else, something we must interpret from the command, and it’s right there where…
Read MoreThere are but two tiny things I wish I could magically implant in the brains of everyone who wants to create stories for a living -- or just ….
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Imagine I told you this story: “This morning, I woke up, got dressed, and went downstairs to the kitchen. There, sitting on the counter, was my notebook. Sipping my coffee, I opened the front cover to read the five words that inspire me every day.”
This is a story about …
Read MoreYou can adapt yourself to your environment or adapt your environment to you. Adapting yourself to your environment is called Autoplastic adaptation. Adapting your environment to you is Alloplastic. We need …
Read MoreYou can adapt yourself to your environment or adapt your environment to you.
Adapting yourself to your environment is called….
Read MoreToday at 12 eastern, I’ll be doing a special behind-the-scenes live discussion with my production team from my new docuseries Against the Grain. Plenty of time for Q&A. Super informal (it’s a Zoom call) ...
Read MoreIf you’re stuck, the solution is simple: make one, tiny, small piece or project … terribly. Writer’s block and any kind of creative block isn’t a real thing. You don’t have writer’s block. You have genius block. You …
Read MoreIt’s the weirdest thing about interviews and narrative style content: having a plan requires you to research and write for hours, all the while knowing you’ll probably ditch more than half the plan. Nowhere else …
Read MoreI’m a sucker for any creator of anything talking at length, and with passion, about making something. I love when comedians discuss the craft of working and reworking their acts on stage and behind …
Read MoreAfter a career in tech, working at Google, HubSpot, and in VC, yanno what I finally realized? Growth is the problem, not the solution. Okay, okay, I need to qualify that. It’s not that growing a business is, itself, a problem…
Read MoreGlance around the business world and you tend to see the opposite: people posturing and pushing their answers and secrets to success and self-importance.
Nothing is more abhorrent than when someone declares, "I can teach you to..." or "I will..." or "I'm sharing my secrets..."
These are a few big shifts that can help each of us become more motivated and focused. By writing this to you, I’m reminding myself as much as anyone else. The daily slog…
Read More“How can we get everyone in the industry to think this way?”
“How can we change the culture?”
“How can we start writing stories instead of list articles?”
“How can we [insert sweeping change]?”
Answer…
Read MoreHeading into any job, you sort of embrace that any of a few factors could cause you to leave it: You don’t like the boss, don’t feel you’re rewarded fairly for the work you do, maybe you move, and so on…
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