Some Reminders
Sometimes it's good to refresh and think about the basics. Here are some quotes I've saved over the years that keep me focused on the right stuff:
Kevin Kelly, Excellent Advice for Living
Prototype your life. Try stuff instead of making grand plans.
Don’t measure your life with someone else’s ruler.
Whenever you can’t decide which path to take, pick the one that produces change.
Don’t be the best. Be the only.
Donella Meadows, Systems Engineer
“People don't need enormous cars; they need admiration and respect. They don't need a constant stream of new clothes; they need to feel that others consider them to be attractive, and they need excitement and variety and beauty. People don't need electronic entertainment; they need something interesting to occupy their minds and emotions. And so forth.
Trying to fill real but nonmaterial needs—for identity, community, self-esteem, challenge, love, joy—with material things is to set up an unquenchable appetite for false solutions to never-satisfied longings. A society that allows itself to admit and articulate its nonmaterial human needs, and to find nonmaterial ways to satisfy them, world require much lower material and energy throughputs and would provide much higher levels of human fulfillment.”
Rob Fitzpatrick, Write Useful Books
The reason this matters is that nobody recommends the second-best solution. So you need to become the best. Not for everyone, but for someone.
Word of mouth can be anticipated and designed for - spend the time to do it.
A recommendation removes competition - no business can compete with a recommendation. Build for them.
Extraordinary benefits accrue to the tiny minority of people who are able to push just a tiny bit longer than most.
Word of mouth is the primary factor behind 20 percent to 50 percent of all purchasing decisions.
Speed is perpetually undervalued. Asking that person out today means you get to live more of your life with them and less of your life waiting. Starting your business today means you begin learning immediately and have more time to figure out what works. Go fast. The future is never guaranteed and the right time may never come.
My Mom
The hardest skill you've got to learn is how to stop moving the goalposts every time something goes well. If you don't figure that out, you'll never be happy.