Month: December 2018

Seth Godin: Installing the stupid filter

“Are you sure?” is something humans ask all the time. If you go to an ethical plastic surgeon and announce, through drunken tears, that you want a new nose, new lips, new hips and a skin peel, all at once, she’ll not only ask if you’re sure, but she’ll send you home to think about it first.

Source: Installing the stupid filter | Seth’s Blog

The Joy of Missing Out

Jason doesn’t pay much attention to what anyone else is doing or thinking. He reads the paper once a day. He has no long-term goals for himself or his business. Everything at Basecamp is designed in six week sprints; if something can’t get done in six weeks, they don’t build it.

Jason and his team focus intently on what they are doing now, discovering what is most important to their customer and doing the best job they can to deliver that. They aren’t driven by an arbitrary growth goal. Years ago, they even decided to stop selling a few of their ancillary products. They felt their flagship Basecamp product was world-class and other complementary products were not. Less was more.

Source: Jason Fried & the Joy of Missing Out | Friday Forward (#155)

Addition by Subtraction

Life can be improved by adding, or by subtracting. The world pushes us to add, because that benefits them. But the secret is to focus on subtracting.

Imagine a horizontal line, with 0 on the left and 20 on the right. I want to be in the middle, at 10. But I’m at 17.

“What can I add to get to 10? I tried adding 8 but that didn’t work. Maybe 3 would help. I should go all-out and add 50.”

No amount of adding will get me where I want to be.

Source: Subtract | Derek Sivers