articles
topics
- self-expansion
- personal development, exploring, learning, expanding identity
- Useful Not True
- reframing: choosing a helpful perspective, understanding others
- writing
- writing, journaling, publishing
- Anything You Want
- entrepreneur lessons from starting, growing, selling my company
- programming / tech
- programming, web, servers, PostgreSQL, OS, home tech, code
- Hell Yeah or No
- fixing faulty thinking, making things happen, what’s worth doing
- saying no
- minimalism, enough, rejecting norms, self-reliance, satiability
- How to Live
- actionable directives, in a perspective taken to its conclusion
- Your Music and People
- considerate marketing, calling attention to your creative work
- money and career
- working, building, leading, business, direction
- international
- cultural psychology, amateur anthropology, understanding places
- other people
- interpersonal understanding, personal profiles
- autobiography
- stuff about me, ideally useful for you
- this site
- announcements and behind the scenes of my websites
all 555 articles, new to old
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Prepare your “no” and keep it handy
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My life was changed by four sentences in four books
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Geography is four-dimensional
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Netizen
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I was inconsiderate but now I’m everywhere
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About my book notes
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Offline 23 hours a day
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More books on this subject
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What next?
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Reframing death
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You are what you pretend to be
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Keep tuning and adjusting
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Take the first step immediately
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Why your choice is wrong
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Talk with friends to solidify it
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Private journal to internalize it
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No new instructions for the computer
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From explorer to self-leader
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How to decide and make the best choice
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An awesome collection of great questions
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Five tiny tales of reframing
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Traits of useful perspectives
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Expand your repertoire
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Diamond in the trash
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Answer great questions
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Who chooses your (next) thoughts?
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The most useful part of this book
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Philosophies are instruments
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What is “the truth” really for?
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Life is _______
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Placebo meanings
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Magic mirror shows what you need to believe
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Which perspective empowers you?
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Judge the contents, not the box
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Carpenters’ tools
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Religion is action, not belief
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Useful?
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Beliefs → emotions → actions
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A daily run and imagination
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Bowling: curve into the target
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Fill your senses with reality
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Your first thought is an obstacle
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The more emotional the belief, the less likely it’s true
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Beliefs are not facts
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Make believe
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Hanging inherited paintings
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Re-edit your mind’s movies
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You can’t trust your mind
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You are the strange one
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That was about you, not them
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Bridge guard, revisited
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Fake or real? True or false? So what?
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Even science isn’t true
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Wanna bet?
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The past is not true
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Memories are not accurate
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The brain invents explanations
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Try to find their incentives
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Cultural meanings
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Obligations are not true
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Rules are a starting point, not the final answer
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Bridge guard
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Separate events and interpretation
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People share perspectives, not facts
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No picture is the whole picture
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Perspectives feel real
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What time is it?
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What’s this about?
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Why did I move to New Zealand?
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How to listen to Ulysses
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the birth and reverb of friendship
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a relationship that ended, not failed
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Have I been married?
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Why are my best friends Jewish?
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One big choice shapes a hundred more
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Come and get me (both you and AI)
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I’m in the final third of my life
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I love the contradiction of religions
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The first time I met someone who believes in God
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Dismissed!
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I hated Dubai until I learned about it
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To question is to consider, not refute
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Rats are surprisingly sweet pets
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We don’t need to use what we make
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Wealth = Have ÷ Want
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How to sync Mac and Linux /home
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How to make the best possible translation of a book?
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How and why to make a /now page on your site
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the best book ever written
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Ben Kihnel
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It shows what you need to believe
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AI gives the news you need
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How to learn JavaScript
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How I backup
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Esperanto, Toki Pona, Swahili, Indonesian
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walk and talk
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The past is not true
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dashing dog, searching for purpose
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$575K of books sold. $575K to save lives.
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The joy and freedom of harmlessly upsetting social norms
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Why I let go of my U.S. citizenship
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the Michael Browne suits
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Curve into the target
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Thinking something nice about someone? Tell them.
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50 conversations in Bangalore and Chennai
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Explorers are bad leaders
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Travelling just for the people
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Want anonymity? Make a persona not a mystery.
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I want to lose every debate.
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Conversations with Tyler Cowen
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Reading the Bible start to finish
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Make believe
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Daily run, part two
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Static HTML comments
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Daily run, part one
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Your explanations are not true
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Shortest date, and ketchup
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full-length videobook for “Your Music and People”
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Anything You Want — third edition for 2022
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Scuba, panic, empathy
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Writing one sentence per line
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The joke that changed my life
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Find a good available .com domain
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Travel is best with young children
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Short URLs: why and how
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Ancestors, Luck, and Descendants
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Why I left America
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Write plain text files
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Database triggers to clean text inputs
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Generate unique random values directly in the database
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Database functions to wrap logic and SQL queries
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Database trigger recalculates totals, for data integrity
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Conclusion
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Balance everything.
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Make change.
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Make a million mistakes.
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Don’t die.
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Create.
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Love.
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Reinvent yourself regularly.
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Get rich.
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Live for others.
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Prepare for the worst.
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Laugh at life.
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Follow the great book.
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Learn.
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Value only what has endured.
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Chase the future.
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Be a famous pioneer.
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Do whatever you want now.
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Pursue pain.
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Let randomness rule.
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Master something.
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Make memories.
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Intertwine with the world.
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Think super-long-term.
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Do nothing.
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Fill your senses.
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Commit.
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Be independent.
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Considerate book pricing
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How many pets do you have?
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$250K books sold. $250K to save lives.
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Time is personal. Your year changes when your life changes.
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Experiments in music and life
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Writing daily, but posting when ready
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How I got rich on the other hand
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Podcast published today
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When in doubt, try the difference
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Why experts are annoying
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What you learn by travelling
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PostgreSQL example of self-contained stored procedures
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Mastery school
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Monthly self-expansion project
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Living according to your hierarchy of values
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How to ask your mentors for help
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When you win the game, you stop playing
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Digital pollution
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Cut out everything that’s not surprising
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Heed your fears
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Daydreaming is my favorite pastime
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Anti-chameleon
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Where we do and don’t want automation
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Human nature to focus on the one bad thing
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Back and forth between super-hot and super-cold
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Err on the side of action, to test theories
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Blowing off work to play
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What happens when we ignore plans?
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Tour -isms
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Meta-considerate
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Daydreaming the downside, for once
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Where to find the hours to make it happen
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Your heroes show which way you’re facing
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Don’t quote. Make it yours and say it yourself.
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Have a private email account
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Cross the world four times
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Future posthumous autobiography
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What I did belies why
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Would you make your art if you were the last person on earth?
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Travel without social praise
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Travel without a phone
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initialize
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My old clothes don’t fit
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Doors and windows and what’s real
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I’ve moved from New Zealand to Oxford England
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Benefits of a daily diary and topic journals
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Subtract
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The art of selfishness
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You don’t need confidence, just contribution.
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Unlearning
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If you’re not feeling “hell yeah!” then say no
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About this book
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OpenBSD : why and how
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Moving for good
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Detailed dreams blind you to new means
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Include everyone in your success
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My writing process
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Keep in touch
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Be an extreme character
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Get specific!
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What it means to be resourceful
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Rock stars have a boss?
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Never wait
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The higher the price, the more they value it
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Creative communication
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Considerate communication
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Get personal
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Pedestals prevent friendships
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Use the internet, not just companies
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Move to the big city
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Why you need a database
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Shed your money taboos
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Pricing philosophy
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Art doesn’t end at the edge of the canvas
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It’s hard to get off stage
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“Marketing” just means being considerate
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Repeatedly follow-up to show you care
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Unlikely places and untangled goals
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What are the odds of that?
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Parenting : Who is it really for?
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To hone your writing, hire a translator.
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Actions, not words, reveal our real values
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Ego is the Enemy
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Think like a bronze medalist, not silver
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Art is useless, and so am I
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Quitting something you love
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Solitary socialite
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Frequently Asked Questions
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How to do what you love and make good money
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Tilting my mirror (motivation is delicate)
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Why are you doing?
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I’m a very slow thinker
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Keep earning your title, or it expires
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When you’re extremely unmotivated
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Disconnect
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Don’t add your two cents
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Possible futures
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Singing the counter-melody
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What to do when you get successful
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Do this. Directives — part 1
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How to stop being rich and happy
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How to get rich
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How to be useful to others
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How to like people
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How to thrive in an unknowable future
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Don’t start a business until people are asking you to
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Interviews at sive.rs/i
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Why I don’t promote
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Happy, Smart, and Useful
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Assume men and women are the same
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Beware of advice
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Overcompensate to compensate
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How to take a compliment
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Why I don’t want stuff
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Should you learn programming? Yes.
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Switch strategies
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nownownow.com
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The /now page movement
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Relax for the same result
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Saying no to everything else
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“Just tell me what to do”: compressing knowledge into directives
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Simplify: move code into database functions
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Getting out of a bad state of mind
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How to change or build your career
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Fixed mindset vs Growth mindset
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I love being wrong
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You can afford to be generous
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Lose every fight
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Every interaction is your moment to shine
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Customer service is everything
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The philosophy of great customer service
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Loving what I used to hate
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The Meaning of Life
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Change careers like Tarzan
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What if you didn’t need money or attention?
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How will this game end?
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Imitate. We are imperfect mirrors.
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Understanding Indonesia
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Understanding Vietnam
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Understanding Singapore
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Understanding Japan
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Same word. Different places? Different meanings.
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Wood Egg 2014 books are on sale now
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Jac Holzman
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Why am I here?
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Why my code and ideas are public
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OK Milt, I’ll start writing again
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Fragile Plan vs Robust Plan
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Wood Egg (my new company)
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Some will always say you’re wrong
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No rules in this game
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Seeking inspiration?
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The Great Movies
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Human Intervention as a Competitive Advantage
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It’s all who you know?
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Focus, entertain, or both?
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Memorizing a programming language using spaced repetition software
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Everything is my fault
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You don’t have to be local
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Push, push, push. Expanding your comfort zone.
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Smart people don’t think others are stupid
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Advice on moving to Los Angeles
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Friends from memory
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The co-op business model: share whatever you’ve got
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232 sand dollars
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Procrastination hack: change “and” to “or”
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You make your perfect world
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Delegate, but don’t abdicate
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Make it anything you want
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It’s about being, not having
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Prepare to double
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It’s OK to be casual
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Little things make all the difference
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The most successful email I ever wrote
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Like you don’t need the money
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Care about your customers more than about yourself
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You don’t need a plan or a vision
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Why no advertising?
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Proudly exclude people
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Formalities play on fear. Bravely refuse.
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Start now. No funding needed.
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The advantage of no funding
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Just like that, my plan completely changed
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If it’s not a hit, switch
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This ain’t no revolution
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A business model with only two numbers
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Make a dream come true
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Just selling my CD
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What’s your compass?
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Ten years of experience in one hour
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Anything You Want (my first book)
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Projecting meaning
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Fish don’t know they’re in water
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Don’t be a donkey
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I moved to Singapore
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Any questions?
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There’s no place like home
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Delegate or die: the self-employed trap.
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Obvious to you. Amazing to others.
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Why wreck a blank canvas?
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The day Steve Jobs dissed me in a keynote
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KarmaList wishlist?
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Valuable to others, or only you?
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Quit quirks when working with others
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My loss
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I assume I’m below average
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How to get hired
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How to hire a programmer to make your ideas happen
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After fifteen years of practice
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How I became Ryuichi Sakamoto’s guitarist
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Naïve Quitting
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Thursday = Thor’s day
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A real person, a lot like you
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Flip it in your favor
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First Follower idea is all yours
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First Follower: Leadership Lessons from a Dancing Guy
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Don’t punish everyone for one person’s mistake
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There are always more than two options
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Big catalog = infinite specialty shops
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Seth Godin on spreading music and selling intimacy
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Papa Bill: I don’t need to worry about you.
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Put buskers online
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"Online" marketing = "Color" TV
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Why I gave my company to charity
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There’s no speed limit
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Shine a spotlight on one idea at a time.
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The challenge: Don’t speak in future tense.
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Trust, but verify
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Let pedestrians define the walkways
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Fela Kuti
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Confidence required
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If you think you haven’t found your passion…
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Doesn’t feel like work (or I’ve forgotten)
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Learning the lesson, not the example.
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How I knew I was done with my company
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You should feel pain when unclear
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How do you grade yourself?
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Not happy with existing venues? Make a new one
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What’s the difference between like, love, and in-love?
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And if only 1% of those people…
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Does your company really want to hang out with me?
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Biking
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Venue for audience to mix their own audio
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Emphasize meaning over price
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Is there such a thing as too much freedom?
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Write? Write. Sleep? Sleep. Read? Read. Don’t fight it.
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Safety
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Imagining lots of tedious steps? Or one fun step?
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Does it help to be desperate? Part 2
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Does it help to be desperate?
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Climbing ladders
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My heroes
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Kurt Vonnegut explains drama
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How to send personalized emails
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Sprezzatura
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What do you hate not doing?
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Musician’s own website as definitive source of all info
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No “yes.” Either “HELL YEAH!” or “no.”
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A computer that would require kids to be creative to use it
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I miss the mob
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Listen to my music, and let me know what I should do
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Tom Williams, hired by Apple at 14
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Barking
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The power of no reward
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The mirror: It’s about you, not them.
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Semi-experts: profit by saving us time
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Nothing to waste: The advantage of being under-funded
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Version 0.1 = Start lo-fi
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Early drafts of great work are encouraging
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Doing the opposite of everyone is valuable
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Japanese addresses: No street names. Block numbers.
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Customers given too many choices are 10x less likely to buy
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Announcing your plans makes you less motivated to accomplish them
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That’s version infinity. First launch version 0.1.
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Show success before asking for help
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Why you need your own company
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MusicThoughts update : inspiring quotes for music-makers
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How to make a movement. Lessons learned from dancing guy.
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You have enough.
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Are you present-focused or future-focused?
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Some people like to pay. Let them
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Are fans telling friends? If not, don’t promote
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The security of no security
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What super-power do you want?
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You need to be profitable to last
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My $3.3M mistake
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Have you looked under the chickens?
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Not what it used to be!
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Character predicts your future
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Goals shape the present, not the future.
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Sammy Cahn said thank you
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Accelerate change
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Aimee Mullins
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My favorite fable
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What do you do for feedback on a new song you’re writing?
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Ideas to Reality
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A free, open song contest idea
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MusicThoughts.com
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Amber Rubarth on being a full-time touring musician
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Advice for a 19-year-old guitarist who wants to be a session musician.
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Complainers
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Don’t... if you think it’s going to make you happy
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Getting past it
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Assume nobody is going to help you
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Happiness is letting someone make you the villain
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How to attend a conference
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Make mystery : make people wonder
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Real rebellion is going to school wearing a clown suit
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This is just one of many options
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Are foreign accents a reflection of identity?
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Nobody knows the future, so focus on what doesn’t change
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The Grand Pursuit
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Uncomparable: anchor a new mama
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Are you at the starting line or the finish line?
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Mastering entrepreneurship?
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Small actions change your self-identity
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Iceland
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6 things I wish I knew the day I started Berklee
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I interview Tim Ferriss about the 4-Hour Workweek
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Reversible business models
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Bye-Bye, Baby!
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Ah, to own nothing!
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Songwriters who don’t perform
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Action-Reaction
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A Musician’s Advice About the College Market
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Selling music by solving a specific need
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How was India?
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Don’t promote until people can take action
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two three four ONE, two three four ONE
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Aim for the edges
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Restrictions will set you free
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Eliminating the time between thinking something and doing it
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If I had a record label, would you be signed to it?
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Circle of influence — Circle of concern
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Piracy is not the problem
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What should I do when someone says, “Let me know what you think!” of their music?
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Never have a limit on your income
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Whatever scares you, go do it
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Happy 10th Birthday to CD Baby — and an announcement
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The strength of many little customers
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The public you is not you
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7 reasons I switched back to PHP after 2 years on Rails
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Ideas are just a multiplier of execution
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Compass in your gut
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Ignore advice that drains you
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Stay in over your head
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You don’t get extreme results without extreme actions
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Be a competent novice, not an expert
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Have someone work the inside of the industry
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Assume the basic sale, and go for quantity
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Get rejected, get filtered
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Photos of your audience on your website
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Put your fans to work
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Call the destination, and ask for directions
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Your interactive website
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Promo bits, ready to copy
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Or you can not talk at all
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Describe your music like a non-musician
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Without a good reason, they won’t bother
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Hillbilly Flamenco
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Don’t know how to describe your music?
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Make people curious in one sentence
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When your music can’t speak for itself
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Shining example: Rayko
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Life is like high school
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Small gifts go a long way
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Don’t be afraid to ask for favors
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Always think how you can help someone
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Meet three new people every week
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Stay in touch with hundreds of people
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Persistence is polite
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Don’t be a mosquito
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Every breakthrough comes from someone you know
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Captain T
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Business is creative
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This is only a test. See what happens
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Direct it yourself
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Was 10%, now 90%
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A good plan wins no matter what happens
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Test marketing
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Well-rounded doesn’t cut
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A hundred actors on stage
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Don’t try to sound big
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Touch as many of their senses as you can
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People search harder for the obscure
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If you target sharp enough, you will own your niche
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The most expensive vodka
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Proudly exclude most people
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A curious answer to the most common question
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Use the tricks that worked on you
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Constantly ask what they really want
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How to get through the gates?
-
It’s just people inside the machine!
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What’s inside this book
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Some quick context for these stories