This was the closing challenge I offered in my speech to college students last week. It’s distilled from this Bertrand Russell quotation:
“The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge.” –Bertrand Russell
The “Be awesome” part is redundant, I know.
If you’re spreading love and pursuing truth, you can’t help but be awesome.
“We rise by lifting others.” –Robert Ingersoll
Excellent!
“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.” –Kurt Vonnegut, Mother Night
I heard Derek Sivers quote this in his podcast interview on the Tim Ferriss Show.
Act as if you are who you want to be.
It turns out that people I consider great conversationalists don’t actually say very much in conversations.
They ask good questions and listen intently.
They are curious and present and authentic.
And interesting.
“…the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars…” –Jack Kerouac
Who can be like this?
I know I’ve got this touch of glorious madness in me. You do, too.
But I do yawn and say commonplace things not infrequently.
Sometimes, though, as if a switch gets flipped, I come alive and burn a little brighter.
We need to switch to madness mode more often and override the default yawn state most of us have grooved into our daily lives.
Your public display of madness just might infect and transform, even if just momentarily, a yawner or two.
Shine, friends.
Often, it’s better. It may take hindsight to bear it out, though.
Not too much. Not too little. Enough.
Enough is just right.
The middle way regularly turns out to be a better way.
“The price of human consciousness is the knowledge of mortality.” –Adam Gopnik
The end is near. And we know it.
“And let silence be the general rule, or let only what is necessary be said, and in few words.”
“The best way to increase the odds that your team will see things you don’t is to assemble incredibly different incredible people.” –Scott Belsky
This is a great post by Scott Belsky.
The team members that have pushed me further and helped transform our work are usually the ones that ask the most questions and express their discontent most effusively.
Groupthink is comfortable, but it’s deadly to innovation and meaningful improvement.
Gather contrarians and outliers and annoyingly curious people into your team.
Embrace the hard questions and the counterpoints to make sure you don’t coast into complacency.
“There is good in everything, if only we look for it.” –Laura Ingalls Wilder
There is good in everything?
You certainly have the choice to find the good in even the worst circumstances.
Don’t resist what is. Love, somehow, even the heartbreak and tragedy that comes your way. Use everything—every setback, every obstacle—to learn and grow and to continually improve.
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“The meaning of life is just to be alive. It is so plain and so obvious and so simple. And yet, everybody rushes around in a great panic as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves.” –Alan Watts
“Good writing evokes sensation: not the fact it is raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.” –E.L. Doctorow
This echoes Kubrick: “The truth of a thing is the feel of it, not the think of it.”
The best competition I have is against myself to become better. –Coach John Wooden
Wooden is THE icon of what a coach could be. Twelve national championships came from his selfless focus on bringing out the best in each of his players.
He said he never talked to his team about winning. He only wanted them to give their best effort. If they did and still fell short on the scoreboard, he didn’t consider that a failure.
Conversely, a poor effort that still resulted in a win was not a cause for celebration.
You can’t control the opposing players. You can only control your own effort and attitude.
You can’t control the circumstances of your daily life. But your response to the circumstances is all you’ve got, and it’s everything.
Focus on what is in your power. Do your best. And accept what comes.
Those who know do not speak. Those who speak do not know.
—LAO ZI, The Way of Lao Zi
“What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult for each other?” —George Eliot
Excellent Journey 
