“Whether you’re a programmer or a seamstress, it’s all about new techniques, simplifying old techniques, and consolidating steps. Making things go faster – but not worse.” – Martha Stewart, Born Aug. 3, 1941. Whatever it is you do more than once, you should always be looking for efficiencies and tricks to make that task easier… Read More →
Blue Jeans: The Secret of Replicability, Scalability, and Success
“I wish I had invented blue jeans. They have expression, modesty, sex appeal, simplicity – all I hope for in my clothes.” – Yves Saint Laurent, Born Aug. 1, 1936. You ever suffer from making things too damn complicated? Too specialized? Too refined and too hard to adapt? That can make it seem like you… Read More →
Build Your Fortune As You Build Your Business: Word by Word
“Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs.” – Henry Ford, Born Jul. 30, 1863. Everyone knows this. It seems like something Ford would have said as a throwaway, knowing he pioneered assembly line manufacturing. But don’t let this one slide by without considering it. Every big, ambitious project that you want… Read More →
Anyone Can Write, But *WRITERS* Finish What They Start
”Ideas are not – ideas come at me all the time; it’s just the way I’m wired. It’s just a matter of focusing it in and figuring out what to do with that.” – Gail Simone, Born Jul. 29, 1974. Everyone has ideas. So what? Dime a dozen. Dime a MILLION. Who cares about your… Read More →
When You Focus on the Work, The Simplest Tools and Tactics Serve Best
“A determined soul will do more with a rusty monkey wrench than a loafer will accomplish with all the tools in a machine shop.” – Robert Hughes, Born Jul. 28, 1938. Ah, the monkey wrench. A large, solidly made tool – that can repair big machines… Or if deliberately tossed into a running machine, wreck… Read More →
A Random Encounter with the SECRET of Winning the “Game”
“The secret we should never let the gamemasters know is that they don’t need any rules.” – Gary Gygax, Born Jul. 27, 1938. Business is like this and art is like this: Just like a game. Role playing games in particular have a strong metaphorical correlation with the info-marketing guru-type professional internet celebrity “industry”. There… Read More →
When Can a Non-Response Can Be Taken as a “NO”? (Almost Never)
“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” – George Bernard Shaw, Born Jul. 26, 1856. The guy who gave me a career in copy (Andy Jenkins, RIP) was a big fan of this quote, and he used it a lot when I worked for him. Mostly in a… Read More →
“Too Much Information” Equals “Untapped Opportunity
“One of the effects of living with electric information is that we live habitually in a state of information overload. There’s always more than you can cope with.” – Marshall McLuhan, Born Jul. 21, 1911. If you’re not someone who can be a creator of new information, your best bet to survive in the future… Read More →
Why Hand Copying Old Sales Material Is a Big Dumb Waste of Time
“It is all very well to copy what one sees, but it is far better to draw what one now only sees in one’s memory. That is a transformation in which imagination collaborates with memory.” – Edgar Degas, Born Jul. 19, 1834. “They” say you should take old winning sales letters by the greats,… Read More →
The Secret of Being Excellent Is Being Prolific First – So Get Started
“Black Sabbath was written on bass: I just walked into the studio and went, bah, bah, bah, and everybody joined in and we just did it.” – Terence Michael Joseph “Geezer” Butler, Born Jul. 17, 1949. Just start doing what you want to do. Don’t think about it too much. And I don’t mean warming… Read More →
- 1
- 2
- 3
- …
- 7
- Next Page »