Its been ages since I blogged and I wonder why. Let me just be honest and say that I have been bloody lazy. Not only have I not blogged I have not done a ton of other things that I was known for in my circle and all but lost a bit of the real me. So I thought I'd make a blogger comeback.. hey if crappy actors can then so can I right!
In this time I have got married to my very very patient and loving wife. I am learning to fix the crap I have accumulated on myself over the past few years.
So in the spirit of new beginnings I thought I'd post something I just read that should help inspire me, given that barely anyone reads my blogs :)
This is from Things a Little Bird Told me - Biz Stone
Stone’s tips for becoming a truly creative thinker include:
- Visualize the future – Whether it’s a life goal or a business problem, picture where you’d like to be in a week or a few years. Let your subconscious mind stew on the issue and how to solve it. This tactic is surprisingly effective.
- Embrace “wacky ideas,” no matter how ridiculous – Stone gets his creative juices flowing through brainstorming sessions that might start with an outlandish premise – such as assuming there’s no gravity. Williams was always the more sensible thinker, but he let Stone follow these flights of fancy.
- “Fake it till you make it” – Stone possessed an unshakable confidence in himself, even when it didn’t seem warranted. When he started blogging in the early 2000s, he called his blog “Biz Stone, Genius.” Stone knew he was no genius, but he figured no one else knew. His confidence helped him gain a following online.
- Don’t get comfortable – A secure job is great, but you must embrace risk to push yourself to greater achievements. Stone left a job at Google to go to a start-up.
- Follow your passion – Without passion, a perfect business plan will fail. If you obsessively love what you’re doing, you’ll be more likely to succeed despite obstacles.
- Forget the money – Instead of focusing on money, think about what inspires you, what you enjoy and what sort of surroundings you’d like to work in every day. This might lead to maxed-out credit cards, but it can yield big successes.
- Embrace limits – Constraints, such as a small budget or a tight deadline, can inspire creativity. The movie Jaws was terrifying in part because director Steven Spielberg lacked the money to build a full-sized mechanical shark. As a cost-cutting alternative, Spielberg shot from the point of view of a killer shark looking up at a swimmer on the surface. This workaround proved far more frightening than a fake shark.
- Be willing to fail – As a teen, Stone took a gymnastics class. He wanted to learn to do a back handspring. He couldn’t quite get past the fear. A coach told Stone: “The key is being willing to fall past the control point.” In other words, success comes after embracing the possibility of failure. In Silicon Valley, 90% of start-ups flop.
- Don’t strive for perfection – In its early days, Twitter was notoriously unreliable. Built in haste for a modest user base, it was a “house of cards” that went down anytime a small glitch arose. Twitter took criticism for its unreliable service, but the result was the rapid growth of an easily constructed platform.
- Learn to listen – Stone’s most valuable skill is listening, whether the speaker is a computer scientist at Google or an annoyed Twitter user.
- Create your own opportunities – In high school, Stone wanted to play sports. Owing to his inexperience, he failed to make the basketball or baseball teams. He asked permission to start a lacrosse team, reasoning that no one else would know how to play, either. He became captain of the team. Stone says, “The determination that led me to create a new sports team taught me an important lesson: Opportunity is manufactured.”
