May 2012
77 posts
Hard work on the right things
I don’t think winners beat the competition because they work harder. And it’s not even clear that they win because they have more creativity. The secret, I think, is in understanding what matters.
It’s not obvious, and it changes. It changes by culture, by buyer, by product and even by the day of the week. But those that manage to capture the imagination, make sales and grow are doing it by perfecting the things that matter and ignoring the rest.
Both parts are difficult, particularly when you are surrounded by people who insist on fretting about and working on the stuff that makes no difference at all.
– Seth Godin
Play
'The Happy Show' gives prescriptions for the blues by Yowei Shaw for WHYY NewsWorks Tonight
On The Happy Show:
“‘The exhibition itself won’t make people happy. In a similar way, I would say watching a Jane Fonda exercise film won’t make you skinny,’ said Sagmeister.”
On making a happy moment:
“‘The most surprising thing I’ve learned is I can manufacture a truly happy moment artificially,’ he said.
He says all you have to do is take a scooter, a beautiful empty road, an MP3 player with songs that don’t have emotional baggage, and drive around with no purpose.
‘Every single time I did it, it created a happy moment beautiful enough that I would have goose bumps with chills running down my spine,” said Sagmeister.’”
Read the full transcription of the audio story and interview with Stefan Sagmeister, ’The Happy Show’ gives prescriptions for the blues by Yowei Shaw featured on WHYY NewsWorks Tonight.
Demographic of One: Can you share with us something your family did for you as a child that has instilled in you such a strong work ethic?... →
mollycrabapple.tumblr.com
I wasn’t a hard worker as a kid. In fact, I was expelled from school at 12, with the diagnosis “oppositional defiance disorder.” In high school, I flunked math classes for handing in tests blank and got suspended for reading books in class. I didn’t get accepted to a single academic college.
…
“When I like people immensely, I never tell their names to any one. It is like surrendering a part of them. I have grown to love secrecy. It seems to be the one thing that can make modern life mysterious or marvelous to us. The commonest thing is delightful if one only hides it.”
—Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray (via bookmania)
