Your “purpose“ in life.
I don’t like the word purpose. It implies that somewhere in the future I will find something that will make me happy, and that until then, I will be unhappy. People fool themselves into thinking that the currency of unhappiness will buy them happiness. That we have to “pay our dues,” go on some sort of ride, and then get dropped off at a big location called our “purpose,” where now we can be happy. It doesn’t work that way Choose Yourself! by James Altucher You’re in charge of your own marketing and promotions.
This might sound daunting at first, but that idea is the essence of creative entrepreneurship, and entrepreneurs can’t use the excuse that “I don’t have time, I’m running a business.” This is your business. Entrepreneurs make time. Choose Yourself! by James Altucher What is controlling you? I will tell you. Your parents are. Your friends are. Your spouse is. Your job is. Your colleagues are. Your children are. So many people have expectations of you. Each one draws a circle around you. You can’t move beyond each person’s circle without disappointing their expectations. And so where can you stand? You stand in the center, in the tiniest circle of all, the tiny circle that is the intersection of all the many circles drawn around you. You need to step out of the circles. Forget about “it” for a second. There is no “it”. There is you. You need to step out of those circles but it’s not so easy. You’ve just spent the first half of your life keeping inside of
To step out in one second is impossible or , at the very least, hard. You are now a spy. A spy on your own life. There are enemies everywhere, keeping track of your position. You must attempt to fool them. Do something a little different. Finger-paint. Take the wrong subway. Go vegetarian for a week. Leave in the middle of the day and don’t comeback. Go to a museum instead. Write a one page novel. Give advice to someone who didn’t ask for it and doesn’t want it. Give yourself time. Practice stepping outside the circles. Eventually you will break free into the above world. And nothing will ever hold you back Faq Me by James Altucher You won’t know until you actually try.
You can do all the market research you want, ask everyone what they think about your idea, or speculate endlessly. But the only way to truly discover if there is gold at the end of the rainbow is to take an action and see what happens. Until you act, you won’t know. However, none of that matters until—and unless—you answer the fourth question: do I want to do it? There is simply no way you are going to give the venture your full effort if your heart isn’t in it at least to some degree. Nothing happens until you take that first smart step. All the ideas in the world don’t mean a thing unless you do something with them. If you don’t act, all you have is a bunch of ideas. But before you act . . . you need to know what you want.If you don’t eventually develop a strong desire, odds are you will never see your idea through. You don’t need to be obsessed or even in love with the idea, but there must be some reason pushing you forward. Otherwise, nothing will happen. Just Start: Take Action, Embrace Uncertainty, Create the Future by Leonard A. Schlesinger, Charles F. Kiefer There are four questions you might ask before starting any new venture:
Now, if you want to create it, then in the known (Prediction-based) world, it can make sense to spend time and effort on questions one, two, and three. But in the unknowable world, where you can’t predict the future, the answers to the first three questions are all the same: “There is no way of telling.” You won’t know until you actually try. You can do all the market research you want, ask everyone what they think about your idea, or speculate endlessly. But the only way to truly discover if there is gold at the end of the rainbow is to take an action and see what happens. Until you act, you won’t know. However, none of that matters until—and unless—you answer the fourth question: do I want to do it? There is simply no way you are going to give the venture your full effort if your heart isn’t in it at least to some degree. Just Start: Take Action, Embrace Uncertainty, Create the Future by Leonard A. Schlesinger, Charles F. Kiefer A very simple test was done by Yale psychologist Stanley Milgram. He took ten students and sent them on the New York City subway system. They went on subways and walked up to all sorts of people who were sitting down: young, old, black, white, female, male, pregnant, etc. To each seated passenger they said, “Can I have your seat?” Seventy percent of the people gave up their seats.
Two interesting things: one, that the percentage of people who got up was so high. They were simply being asked to get up and they did as they were told. Interesting thing is how reluctant the students were to even do the experiment. To ask people for their seats went against everything they had ever been taught. This is obviously an extreme. But it points out how hard it is for us to do things for ourselves unless we are given some implicit permission. Choose Yourself! by James Altucher And yet when it comes to creative endeavors, so often we find people going at them from the wrong end. This generally afflicts those who are young and inexperienced—they begin with an ambitious goal, a business, or an invention or a problem they want to solve. This seems to promise money and attention. They then search for ways to reach that goal. Such a search could go in thousands of directions, each of which could pan out in its own way, but in which they could also easily end up exhausting themselves and never find the key to reaching their overarching goal. There are too many variables that go into success. The more experienced, wiser types, such as Ramachandran, are opportunists. Instead of beginning with some broad goal, they go in search of the fact of great yield—a bit of empirical evidence that is strange and does not fit the paradigm, and yet is intriguing. This bit of evidence sticks out and grabs their attention, like the elongated rock. They are not sure of their goal and they do not yet have in mind an application for the fact they have uncovered, but they are open to where it will lead them. Once they dig deeply, they discover something that challenges prevailing conventions and offers endless opportunities for knowledge and application.
In looking for facts of great yield, you must follow certain guidelines. Although you are beginning within a particular field that you understand deeply, you must not allow your mind to become tethered to this discipline. Instead you must read journals and books from all different fields. Sometimes you will find an interesting anomaly in an unrelated discipline that may have implications for your own. You must keep your mind completely open—no item is too small or unimportant to escape your attention. If an apparent anomaly calls into question your own beliefs or assumptions, so much the better. You must speculate on what it could mean, this speculation guiding your subsequent research but not determining your conclusions. If what you have discovered seems to have profound ramifications, you must pursue it with the utmost intensity. Better to look into ten such facts, with only one yielding a great discovery, than to look into twenty ideas that bring success but have trivial implications. You are the supreme hunter, ever alert, eyes scanning the landscape for the fact that will expose a once-hidden reality, with profound consequences. Mastery by Robert Greene We generally have a misconception about the inventive and creative powers of the human mind. We imagine that creative people have an interesting idea, which they then proceed to elaborate and refine in a somewhat linear process. The truth, however, is much messier and more complex. Creativity actually resembles a process known in nature as evolutionary hijacking. In evolution, accidents and contingencies play an enormous role.
Ideas do not come to us out of nowhere. Instead, we come upon something by accident—in the case of Graham, a radio announcement that he hears, or questions from the audience after a lecture. If we are experienced enough and the moment is ripe, this accidental encounter will spark some interesting associations and ideas in us. In looking at the particular materials we can work with, we suddenly see another way to use them. All along the way, contingencies pop up that reveal different paths we can take, and if they are promising, we follow them, not sure of where they will lead. Instead of a straight-line development from idea to fruition, the creative process is more like the crooked branching of a tree. The lesson is simple—what constitutes true creativity is the openness and adaptability of our spirit. When we see or experience something we must be able to look at it from several angles, to see other possibilities beyond the obvious ones. We imagine that the objects around us can be used and co-opted for different purposes. We do not hold on to our original idea out of sheer stubbornness, or because our ego is tied up with its rightness. Instead, we move with what presents itself to us in the moment, exploring and exploiting different branches and contingencies. We thus manage to turn feathers into flying material. The difference then is not in some initial creative power of the brain, but in how we look at the world and the fluidity with which we can reframe what we see. Creativity and adaptability are inseparable. Mastery by Robert Greene Treat your work as a refuge—an oasis of control and creative satisfaction in the midst of the bad stuff. Don’t beat yourself up if you’re not on fire creatively every day—give yourself credit if you show up for work and make even a small amount of progress. When you put down your tools for the day, you may even see your personal situation with a fresh eye.
Samuel Johnson famously wrote his book Rasselas in one week to cover his mother’s funeral expenses. Shane Carruth wrote, directed, produced, and starred in his cult movie Primer, filming it in five weeks and keeping the cost down to $7,000 by filling the cast with friends and family and doing everything himself. In order to capitalize on the chart success of their singles, the Beatles recorded ten songs in a single day at a reported £400 to complete their debut album, Please Please Me. Manage Your Day-to-Day: Build Your Routine, Find Your Focus, and Sharpen Your Creative Mind (The 99U Book Series)) by Jocelyn K. Glei You must also maintain a sense of destiny, and feel continuously connected to it. You are unique, and there is a purpose to your uniqueness. You must see every setback, failure, or hardship as a trial along the way, as seeds that are being planted for further cultivation, if you know how to grow them. No moment is wasted if you pay attention and learn the lessons contained in every experience. By constantly applying yourself to the subject that suits your inclinations and attacking it from many different angles, you are simply enriching the ground for these seeds to take root. You may not see this process in the present, but it is happening. Never losing your connection to your Life’s Task, you will unconsciously hit upon the right choices in your life. Over time, mastery will come to you.
Mastery by Robert Greene |
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