Reminders

How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.

Anne Frank, author, in the Diary of a Young Girl

“I would also write down my fears and look at them.”

“I would also write down my fears and look at them. When fears stay stuck inside your head, your imagination can go wild, torturing you with all the various negative possibilities and outcomes. But when you write them down, you clarify exactly what you are afraid of, and soon the power they hold over you will fade.

Whenever I feel fear coming on, I create a what-if scenario by drawing a line down the middle of a piece of yellow legal paper, using the left side to list my fears and the right to imagine the worst possible outcome.”

Start Something That Matters By Blake Mycoskie

 

“I also remember to think small.”

“I also remember to think small. It’s best not to regard your next step as a tremendous risk. Think about it as one small step on a long journey.

Thinking big always sounds good, but it’s a common mistake shared by lots of people starting a business. We started TOMS with 250 pairs of shoes in three duffel bags – that’s it. IT didn’t quit my job immediately. I didn’t invest tens of thousands of dollars. I just made 250 pairs of shoes and tried to sell them.

By starting small, you can work through your story, try out your idea, and test your mettle. There’s a Japanese concept known as kaizen, which says that small improvements made every day will lead to massive improvement overall. […] When you keep this concept in mind, reaching big goals seems much less scary.”

Start Something that Matters by Blake Mycoskie

 

“The lesson of letting go is what we constrain our own creativity.”

“The lesson of letting go is what we constrain our own creativity. We are so worried about playing the wrong note or saying the wrong thing that we end up with nothing at all, the silence of the scared imagination. While the best performers learn how to selectively repress their inhabitations, to quiet the DLPFC on command, it’s also possible to lose one’s inhibitions entirely. The result is always tragedy often limned with art.”

Imagine: How Creativity Works

by Jonah Lehrer

 

 

“The way to get over creative block is to simply place some constraints on yourself.”

“The way to get over creative block is to simply place some constraints on yourself. It seems contradictory, but when it comes to creative work, limitations mean freedom. Write a song on your lunch break. Paint a painting with only one color. Start a business without any start-up capital. Shoot a movie with your iPhone and a few of your friends. Build a machine out of spare parts. Don’t make excuses for not working – make things with the time, space and materials you have, right now.

The right constraints can lead to your very vest work. My favorite example? Dr. Seuss wrote The Cat in the Hat with only 236 different words, so his editor bet him he couldn’t write a book with only 50 different words. Dr. Seuss came back an won the best wit Green Eggs and Ham, one of the bestselling children’s book of all time.”

Steal Like An Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Creative

Austin Kleon

“Telling yourself you have all the time in the world, all the money in the world, all the colors in the palette, anything you want – that just kills creativity.” – Jack White

 

Wisdom

“It isn’t necessary that you leave home. Sit at your desk and listen. Don’t even listen, just wait. Don’t wait, be still and alone. The whole world will offer itself to you.”

Franz Kafka

Step away from the screen

“We don’t know where we get our ideas from. What we do know is that we do not get them from our laptops.” – John Cleese

 

“Step away from the screen. The computer is really good for editing your ideas, and it’s really good for getting your ideas ready for publishing out into the world, but it’s not really good for generating ideas. There are too many opportunities to hit the delete key. The computer brings out the uptight perfectionist in us – we start editing ideas before we have them.” – Austin Kleon

 

Steal Like an Artists: 10 Things Nobody Told you about Creative

Austin Kleon

 

“Stories provide a quick and easy way for people to acquire lots of knowledge in a vivid and engaging fashion. “

“Stories are an important source of cultural learning that help us make sense of the world. At a high level, this learning can be about the rules and standards of a group or society. How about a good employee behave? What does it mean to be a moral person? Or on a more basic level: who’s a good mechanic who won’t overcharge?

Beyond stories, think about other ways that people could acquire this information. Trial and error might work, but it would be extremely costly and time-consuming.

[…]

Stories provide a quick and easy way for people to acquire lots of knowledge in a vivid and engaging fashion. One good story about a mechanic who fixed the problem without charging is worth dozens of observations and years of trials and errors. Stories save time and hassle and give people the information they need in a way that’s easy to remember.”

Contagious: Why Things Catch on.

Jonah Berger

“Articulating a personal challenge in the form of a question has other benefits.”

“Articulating a personal challenge in the form of a question has other benefits. It allows you to be bold and adventurous because anyone can question anything. You don’t have to be a recognized expert; you just have to be willing to say, I’m going to venture forth in the world with my question and see what I find.

As you do this you’re in a strong position to build ideas and attract support. Because, whereas people are more likely to ignore or challenge you when you come at them with answers, they almost can’t resist advising or helping you to answer a great question. All of this helps to build momentum. Questions (the right ones, anyway) are good at generating momentum, which is why changemakers so often use them as a starting point.”

A More Beautiful Question by Warren Berger

“By questioning.”

“But when we want to shake things up and instigate change, it’s necessary to break free of familiar thought patterns and easy assumptions. We have to vert off the beaten neural path. And we do this, in large part, by questioning.”

A More Beautiful Question by Warren Berger