Monthly Archives: January 2015

Mr. PTO

When your “out-of-office” is on, you have two choices.

  1. Read the emails and selectively send brief replies.
  2. Respect yourself.

Your call, Mr. PTO.

16 Things I Learned from Louis CK’s Latest

The background: I watched the latest Louis CK special last night. You can download it from his website for $5. That’s the only way to get it. I heard about its release from an email from Louis CK (because I’m on his mailing list).

It was great.

Here are 16 things I learned from Louis CK’s latest.

  1. When you can’t do bigger, do smaller.
  2. Frightening work usually gets great results.
  3. Asking people not to steal is more effective than telling them not to.
  4. Don’t waste words, especially on stage.
  5. There’s nothing wrong with doing certain things yourself (not outsourcing).
  6. But you still gotta have help to get results.
  7. Don’t take yourself too seriously.
  8. Make epic things rarely but regularly.
  9. When selling your work, make it easy to say yes (and hard to say no).
  10. When sending long marketing emails, make people feel like it’s written directly to them.
  11. And make them feel like they’re there with you while you write it.
  12. And fill the email with emotion.
  13. Bring water on stage.
  14. Call the audience out.
  15. One-hour specials live forever.
  16. End with a bang.

A Consultant’s Family

Life on the road is a grind. The people who do it with you become your second family.

  • Your colleagues.
  • Your clients.
  • The flight crew.
  • The hotel staff.
  • Everyone.

But what happens when they’re no longer your second family? When they’ve been upgraded to your first?

Then, you know it’s time to go home.

Boyhood

Everyone can find something in the movie “Boyhood” with which to identify.

Perhaps that was the goal.

Certainly, though, that’s why the movie did nothing for me.

I’d prefer to make things that you either love or don’t appreciate.

Shreds of appeal for the masses? I couldn’t even get past the first hour.

Moral of the story: Don’t be like “Boyhood.” Resist temptation to make something for the masses. Appreciation is not enough.

Cost

“How much does it cost?”

It’s a question that doesn’t mean what you might think it means.

It actually means, “How do I avoid this? Is it necessary? Can we find a way to reduce it?”

So, if you’re selling stuff and hear how much does it cost, you’ve already lost.

Three Pieces of Inspiration

Here’s something inspirational to carry you through into the weekend.

Three things, actually:

  • You are alive.
  • You are on Earth.
  • You get to eat bacon (or any other thing you find to be the greatest thing ever. For me, currently it’s pomegranate.)

How great is that?

[HT to Louis CK’s Oh My God]

Strengths

Find ’em in yourself. And your teammates. And your friends.

Focus on those and nothing else.

Because the weaknesses will always be someone else’s strengths.

And building upon what you’re good at is much more productive, fulfilling, and enjoyable than trying to fix the things at which you suck.

Picture Your Life in Weeks

You can use grains of rice. Or, M&M’s.

Or for something more neat, a simple grid, like tic-tac-toe, where every enclosed box represents a week. With that, you could represent your whole life (in weeks) on single sheet of paper.

The points are these:

  • Your weeks are finite.
  • The early ones are up to your parents.
  • The late ones are up to your kids (or, perhaps more your relationship with them and theirs).
  • The middle ones are up to you.
  • Live for today, but not so much where tomorrow is a disaster.
  • Live to make others’ weeks great, but not so much where yours never are.
  • Don’t forget the first point.

So, how’s your week going?

[HT to a phenomenal piece from Wait But Why on visualizing your life in weeks]

Lucky Dog

Imagine being a 7-year-old and waking up one morning to an empty house.

Your parents are gone. Nowhere to be found.

Sure, you’d fend for yourself for a while. But, eventually, you’d venture out to find them.

And some food.

Now, imagine being a 1-year-old dog in the same situation.

Nothing is wrong with you. You just got unlucky.

Surely, you’d be so grateful if someone would adopt you, right?

Right?