Neil deGrasse Tyson shares the most astounding fact about the Universe.
“The Universe is in us.” Beautiful.
20 Things I Should Have Known at 20
1. The world is trying to keep you stupid. From bank fees to interest rates to miracle diets, people who are not educated are easier to get money from and easier to lead. Educate yourself as much as possible for wealth, independence, and happiness.
2. Do not have faith in institutions to educate you. By the time they build the curriculum, it’s likely that the system is outdated– sometimes utterly broken. You both learn and get respect from people worth getting it from by leading and doing, not by following.
3. Read as much as you can. Learn to speed read with high retention.Emerson Spartz taught me this while I was at a Summit Series event. If he reads 2-3 books a week, you can read one.
A great little list by Julien Smith. I totally agree with all of them, except maybe #8. Trying to be cool is a waste of time. Just be comfortable with yourself and you’ll come off as cool. Trying to be cool is inherently not cool.
Source: inoveryourhead.net
Morgan Missen: int main()
Finding, growing, and keeping the best team possible is the challenge that unites our industry, from the earliest startup to the largest public company. Every tech leader will tell you how critical—and how difficult—it is to hire great people. As knowledge workers, we know how much the people…
Awesome to see some startup news that isn’t from a VC or product company. Obviously, Morgan hasn’t given a lot of details, but it sounds like she’s planning to do for recruiting, what Janice Fraser and her team at LUXr did for UX education and mentoring in the startup community.
I’d love to see something like this happen for HR as well. Good luck, Morgan.
Source: morganmissen
There are more things to alarm us than to harm us, and we suffer more often in apprehension than reality.
Source: mralancooper
Rainy DC
This morning on reddit, I made some comments about nutrition and subsequently realized that life expectancy is often used as a proxy for health, but that it doesn’t consider quality of life at all.
A long life does not equal a quality life.
This strikes me as the same kind of problem as measuring the success of a company by how much revenue it generates, or measuring a country’s place in the world by its GDP.
Which reminded me of Chip Conley’s TED talk (embedded above) in which he discusses important metrics, such as GNH (Gross National Happiness). It also reminded me of his new-ish book, Emotional Equations
A while ago I did an exercise where I wrote one sentence, each day, about my company, Bindo. The idea was help me be more clear about my vision for the company and to help keep me on track while pursuing that vision. The first sentence I wrote was this:
I want Bindo to be a place where people love coming to work.
When I look back at it now, I feel proud of that statement, despite the fact that we still have a long way to go before we get there. You have to start somewhere, right? I think it’s a solid tenet upon which to build a sustainable, long-term business.
Poem for a rainy day
Rain patters on my window
I watch from my bed
Alone, but dry
Don’t ignore your dreams; don’t work too much; say what you think; cultivate friendships; be happy.
Source: paulgraham.com
Lower Manhattan from Brooklyn Bridge Park.
New York in spring.
The design instinct, above all, is about viewing the world around you as a place filled with opportunities to add more thoughtfulness and care.
Source: explore-blog
Bowery St.
chriskurdziel.com: Saying "No" Sucks
In its essence, I think this boils down to one thing: being present. Pick the things in life that really matter: your family, your friends, the people, work and art that truly inspires you. You don’t have to ignore everything else, but don’t say yes to anything that compromises the level of enjoyment or excellence that you get and give to those things that really matter.
So much of this rings true, from loving the feeling of having a can do attitude and making things happen, to having to say no to interesting opportunities, so you can be fully present in the activities and with the people who really matter to you.
Filtering out the “merely interesting” to focus on the “truly important” has been a theme for me lately. I’m happy to be getting better at it.
(via arainert)
Source: chriskurdziel
Flushing Ave.
On Jeremy Lin and Linsanity
Linsanity is only possible because pro basketball is so boring to begin with. In college ball, every player is as impassioned as Lin.
