SWLW #567: Creativity Faucet, My definition of "Life’s Work", and more

Heya,

As always, below you can read my best findings for the week.
 

This Week's Favorite

10,000 Hours With Reid Hoffman: What I Learned
21 minutes read.

Ben Casnocha shares 16 insights from working closely with one of our generation's greatest business minds - Reid Hoffman. My favorite insight is "Reason is the steering wheel. Emotion is the gas pedal." -- beautifully put and so powerful to master.

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Culture

When Your Code Does Something That You Didn't Even Know Was Possible.
1 minute read.

My humble effort to help you start the weekend with a smile on your face.

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Creativity Faucet: Increase Your Creativity
6 minutes read.

"Visualize your creativity as a backed-up pipe of water. The first mile is packed with wastewater. This wastewater must be emptied before the clear water arrives. Because your pipe only has one faucet, there's no shortcut to achieving clarity other than first emptying the wastewater. [...] Most creators resist their bad ideas then never reach clear water. If you've opened a blank document, scribbled a few thoughts, then walked away because you weren't struck with gold, then you too never got past it. Ed and Neil have trained themselves to overcome this fear and laziness. [...] Relentless Juxtaposition teaches us a lesson about creativity: Don't recreate what you love. Instead, pursue what you wish others would have made by now. That's where there's originality." -- Julian Shapiro with another great essay, reminding us of the power of playfulness to nurture ideas. Another thing that often helps me - is surrounding myself with people who enjoy discussing ideas (versus only dismissing others' ideas). It can also develop our brain to remain open and positive, looking for new angles to examine problems and imagine solutions.

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A Message Apple Would Send to All of It’s New Employees to Encourage Them to Be a Little Crazy and Obsessive Over the Products They Create.
3 minutes read.

This welcome note for Apple employees can send a strong signal. It won't speak to everyone, but it makes them stand out to the type of people they seek to attract. What would you write if you gave a new employee a short letter from the company?

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Before Growth
3 minutes read.

When building a company, may it be bootstrapped entirely or you raise money, focusing on building the first 100 (or 1000) true fans should be our focus. The problem with early success focusing on vanity metrics is that it can take months (sometimes years) to understand you're on the wrong path.

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Peopleware

A Discussion on Communication With Executives, Using the Lens of This Common Management Line
6 minutes read.

I see many lessons learned in this post that took me years to understand when I worked with CEOs and CTOs in the past 17 years. "Build business knowledge. One of the worst patterns that leads to unclear communication is a missing sense of priority where people frame low priority speed bumps as high priority emergencies." -- This one can really change your career's trajectory. Six years into my career I started to read many product and business (marketing, sales, copywriting, etc.) books and talk with leaders in this space to learn to relate (emotionally) to the concerns executives have, and connect my goals and ideas to create a shared vision of success they care about.

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Holding a Cynical Worldview Is Depressing. Yes: There Are Times Where Such a View Can Accurately Predict Behavior. However, It Is Not the Way I Want to Go Through Life. I Want to Trust My Fellow Humans and Believe in Their Better Nature. How Do You Fight Cynicism Every Day? (Thread)
3 minutes read.

Dylan Field started a thread with many wonderful suggestions. Learning to be happy is a skill. Being an optimist is a (daily) decision. Scott Belsky puts it well: "optimism takes us places, cynicism keeps us still or sets us back."

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My Definition of "Life’s Work"
3 minutes read.

"I love this image of the field from which we recharge ourselves…everyone's field is different, but it is in discovering our field, or more accurately, being honest with ourselves about the nature of our individual field, that we can begin a lifelong quest. [...] Life’s work: a lifelong quest to build something for others that expresses who you are." -- Patrick OShaughnessy wrote one of my favorite posts this year.

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And finally, inspiring tweets...

@paulg: Work on startup ideas that require you to be the way you already are. Then what would in ordinary life be a mere idiosyncrasy can become a unique advantage.

@scarletinked: Most people get promoted by building something new (a new feature, a new service). Rarely do you get a promotion by simplifying / removing. The industry needs to figure out how to recognize the value of simplification.



p.s. if you're interested in joining SWLW's Slack channel, simply reply to this email and let me know. If you're leading a team, consider writing your Manager README (it's free) or getting my e-book and interviews Leading Snowflakes: The New Engineering Manager's Handbook. You can also support me by becoming a SWLW Patron. Thank you ❤️




Keep reading, keep learning.
-- Oren Ellenbogen.