From the Inspiration Archives

The Good Life

The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge. … Then it hit me: Life is too precious and too fleeting to waste my time on bullshit like tenure. I didn’t become a professor to get tenure. I became a professor to make the world better through science. From this day forward,… Read more »

Does It Pay to Be a Jerk?

To summarize: being a jerk is likely to fail you, at least in the long run, if it brings no spillover benefits to the group; if your professional transactions involve people you’ll have to deal with over and over again; if you stumble even once; and finally, if you lack the powerful charismatic aura of… Read more »

Kurt Vonnegut’s Three Life Truths

1. We are what we pretend to be. 2. When you’re dead you’re dead. 3. Make love when you can. It’s good for you. As noted in his work, Mother Night

Lessons Learned in 2014

I’ve never subscribed to setting New Year’s resolutions or goals. Which I’ve written extensively about in the past. However, I do think it is important to take the New Year to look forward on how to improve life, as well as reflect on what we’ve learned in the year past. So here’s a short list… Read more »

StartUp Podcast

StartUp is a new series with Alex Blumberg from This American Life & Planet Money that follows Blumberg as he starts a podcast company. I’ve been hooked from the beginning, listening and re-listening to episodes as soon as they come out. The series is currently on it’s seventh episode and packed full with lessons pertaining… Read more »

Are You a Commodity?

There are two sets of design professionals. The first set are commodities, and deliver value on a production level. These designers set their rates by the hour, and have a direct relationship between time and money. Typically these professionals have a fair amount of competition, and their market becomes saturated over time. They possess no… Read more »

Vote.

If non-voters started voting for outliers who live their morals, our democracy would change completely in less than a decade. Seth Godin

Paul Jarvis on Doing More & Promoting Less

If the work you’re promoting on social media isn’t getting enough traction to build a customer base, the answer is seldom that you need to promote it more. What it probably means is that you need to do better work–or at least refocus that work to be more valuable to its intended audience. Social media… Read more »