Selections from a The Next Web Conference Address - Amsterdam, 2010
by Tim Ferriss
1. It doesn’t matter how many people don’t get it. What matters is how many people do.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“It’s critical in social media, as in life, to have a clear objective and not to lose sight of that,” Ferriss says. He argues that if your objective is to do the greatest good for the greatest number of people or to change the world in some small way (be it through a product or service), you only need to pick your first 1,000 fans — and carefully. “As long as you’re accomplishing your objectives, that 1,000 will lead to a cascading effect,” Ferriss explains. “The 10 million that don’t get it don’t matter.”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2. 10% of people will find a way to take anything personally. Expect it.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“People are least productive in reactive mode,” Ferriss states, before explaining that if you are expecting resistance and attackers, you can choose your response in advance, as opposed to reacting inappropriately. This, Ferriss says, will only multiply the problem. “Online I see people committing ‘social media suicide’ all the time by one of two ways. Firstly by responding to all criticism, meaning you’re never going to find time to complete important milestones of your own, and by responding to things that don’t warrant a response.” This, says Ferriss, lends more credibility by driving traffic.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3. “Trying to get everyone to like you is a sign of mediocrity.” (Colin Powell)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“If you treat everyone the same and respond to everyone by apologizing or agreeing, you’re not going to be recognizing the best performers, and you’re not going to be improving the worst performers,” Ferriss says. “That guarantees you’ll get more behavior you don’t want and less you do.” That doesn’t mean never respond, Ferriss goes on to say, but be “tactical and strategic” when you do.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4. “If you are really effective at what you do, 95% of the things said about you will be negative.” (Scott Boras)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“This principle goes hand-in-hand with number two,” Ferriss says. “I actually keep this quote in my wallet because it is a reminder that the best people in almost any field are almost always the people who get the most criticism.” The bigger your impact, explains Ferriss (whose book is a New York Times, WSJ and BusinessWeek bestseller), and the larger the ambition and scale of your project, the more negativity you’ll encounter. Ferriss jokes he has haters “in about 35 languages.”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5. “If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid.” (Epictetus)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Another way to phrase this is through a more recent quote from Elbert Hubbard,” Ferriss says. “‘To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing.” Ferriss, who holds a Guinness World Record for the most consecutive tango spins, says he has learned to enjoy criticism over the years. Ferriss, using Roman philosophy to expand on his point, says: “Cato, who Seneca believed to be the perfect stoic, practiced this by wearing darker robes than was customary and by wearing no tunic. He expected to be ridiculed and he was, he did this to train himself to only be ashamed of those things that are truly worth being ashamed of. To do anything remotely interesting you need to train yourself to be effective at dealing with, responding to, even enjoying criticism… In fact, I would take the quote a step further and encourage people to actively pursue being thought foolish and stupid.”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6. “Living well is the best revenge.” (George Herbert)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“The best way to counter-attack a hater is to make it blatantly obvious that their attack has had no impact on you,” Ferriss advises. “That, and [show] how much fun you’re having!” Ferriss goes on to say that the best revenge is letting haters continue to live with their own resentment and anger, which most of the time has nothing to do with you in particular. “If a vessel contains acid and you pour some on an object, it’s still the vessel that sustains the most damage,” Ferriss says. “Don’t get angry, don’t get even — focus on living well and that will eat at them more than anything you can do.”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
7. Keep calm and carry on.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The slogan “Keep Calm and Carry On” was originally produced by the British government during the Second World War as a propaganda message to comfort people in the face of Nazi invasion. Ferriss takes the message and applies it to today’s world. “Focus on impact, not approval. If you believe you can change the world, which I hope you do, do what you believe is right and expect resistance and expect attackers,” Ferriss concludes. “Keep calm and carry on!”
Monday, July 11, 2011
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Disqualifying Statements
by Malcolm Gladwell
"Only once before in my life have I even kept a diary, and that was in my midteens, when I was running track, and all the entries read something like: "4 miles, then 4 x 800, with 30-second recovery. Felt strong." Somehow a diary isn't a diary when it includes the phrase "felt strong." As I've gotten older, things have gotten worse, particularly since I stumbled across the Theory of Disqualifying Statements. This was a principle that came to me several years ago, when I was seated next to a very attractive woman at a dinner party. During a lull in the conversation, I asked her where she went to college, whereupon she launched into an elaborate explanation of how her grandfather went to Harvard, her father went to Harvard, her mother went to Harvard, and her brothers went to Harvard--but she was way too much of a maverick to do something that safe and predictable.
"So where did you go?" I asked, imagining this young rebel at Oklahoma State or the University of Kinshasa or even UTEP.
"Brown," she replied, without missing a beat--and, at that moment, the Theory of Disqualifying Statements was born: For every romantic possibility, no matter how robust, there exists at least one equal and opposite sentence, phrase, or word (Brown!) capable of extinguishing it.
There was a time when I was something of a connoisseur of Disqualifying Statements, and actually compiled a short list of the most compelling. (My favorite: A friend moved to a tiny town in uppermost New England and began to date a local. She managed to overlook their difference in class and perspective, until one night, during their inaugural amorous encounter on his couch, he removed her shirt, and, slack jawed, blurted out, "Nice Tits!" At which point, the Trans-Am and the Naugahyde furniture and the Pabst Blue Ribbon suddenly became unendurable. She walked out, never to see him again. "Tits," until then a word of harmless connotation, was the disqualifier.)
I realize this has been a lengthy digression. But do you see my point? Do you now see why I've been so withholding? Diaries, by their very seductively uninhibiting nature, are breeding grounds for disqualifying statements. Any one of these sentences could irrevocably alienate any one of you (not to mention the very real possibility that merely owning up to the Theory of Disqualifying Statements is in itself a Disqualifying Statement). Hence my trepidation, and why I don't feel I can do any more than the most cursory of explanations of my day. So here goes: Got up 8ish. Made a few calls. Late lunch. Went to the gym. Felt Strong."
Source
"Only once before in my life have I even kept a diary, and that was in my midteens, when I was running track, and all the entries read something like: "4 miles, then 4 x 800, with 30-second recovery. Felt strong." Somehow a diary isn't a diary when it includes the phrase "felt strong." As I've gotten older, things have gotten worse, particularly since I stumbled across the Theory of Disqualifying Statements. This was a principle that came to me several years ago, when I was seated next to a very attractive woman at a dinner party. During a lull in the conversation, I asked her where she went to college, whereupon she launched into an elaborate explanation of how her grandfather went to Harvard, her father went to Harvard, her mother went to Harvard, and her brothers went to Harvard--but she was way too much of a maverick to do something that safe and predictable.
"So where did you go?" I asked, imagining this young rebel at Oklahoma State or the University of Kinshasa or even UTEP.
"Brown," she replied, without missing a beat--and, at that moment, the Theory of Disqualifying Statements was born: For every romantic possibility, no matter how robust, there exists at least one equal and opposite sentence, phrase, or word (Brown!) capable of extinguishing it.
There was a time when I was something of a connoisseur of Disqualifying Statements, and actually compiled a short list of the most compelling. (My favorite: A friend moved to a tiny town in uppermost New England and began to date a local. She managed to overlook their difference in class and perspective, until one night, during their inaugural amorous encounter on his couch, he removed her shirt, and, slack jawed, blurted out, "Nice Tits!" At which point, the Trans-Am and the Naugahyde furniture and the Pabst Blue Ribbon suddenly became unendurable. She walked out, never to see him again. "Tits," until then a word of harmless connotation, was the disqualifier.)
I realize this has been a lengthy digression. But do you see my point? Do you now see why I've been so withholding? Diaries, by their very seductively uninhibiting nature, are breeding grounds for disqualifying statements. Any one of these sentences could irrevocably alienate any one of you (not to mention the very real possibility that merely owning up to the Theory of Disqualifying Statements is in itself a Disqualifying Statement). Hence my trepidation, and why I don't feel I can do any more than the most cursory of explanations of my day. So here goes: Got up 8ish. Made a few calls. Late lunch. Went to the gym. Felt Strong."
Source
Friday, July 8, 2011
Toothbrush
It’s okay that you’re disappointing
me with the things that you say.
I like watching your lips move
at least as much as
I like watching TV and stuff.
So I’ve been dating again and
I think I should buy a new toothbrush
the next time I’m out,
these things wear out
it’s no big deal.
me with the things that you say.
I like watching your lips move
at least as much as
I like watching TV and stuff.
So I’ve been dating again and
I think I should buy a new toothbrush
the next time I’m out,
these things wear out
it’s no big deal.
Monday, June 27, 2011
Joy
“I can’t believe some of the things you post there.”
I can’t, either. It does give me somewhere to put all of this where you may choose to scrutinize it at your leisure. And I do very much enjoy the additive nature of this project; that it grows in size and overall message complexity. I like to believe that some day I might dress it and send it out in my stead.
As for the content, I have no apologies. I sure hope no one finds out that I’m strange. BREAKING NEWS.
I’m fairly sure my readership consists almost entirely of past and future girlfriends, anyway. Hi, ladies. A valuable service is being provided for you here. Those past get to cluck their tongues and shake their heads knowingly. Those future may as well find out what they’re in for: spectacular melodrama and needless nautical references. I AM IN YOU. Well. You know what I mean. I also guarantee a deeper and more complete overall experience than the other candidates offer. They’re just a person. I am everyone.
What I do regret is the incompleteness of this tapestry. There is little joy. One doesn’t find Jesus on prom night nor does one run for pad and pencil when things are well. At least I don’t. There’s little need to make sense of experience when that experience is already what you wanted. You simply exist and enjoy. There is no reason to process it further and doing so would only serve to create damage and distance.
It presents a very real issue in terms of voice. Is this severed perspective punctuated with moments of shuffling ache really adequate? Were that the whole of my self I would be a sorry figure, indeed. However, I find it difficult to reproduce the rest of the equation, stretches of simple pleasure, in a satisfactory way. Even the quiet, daily happenings that constitute a happy day. Kurt Vonnegut said that such moments should be acknowledged, that we should do so out loud saying, "if this isn't nice, I don't know what is." I want to do more, but it's slow going. It somehow fails to translate textually though it accounts for the majority of my daily experience.
The only exception to this are periods of love which, while certainly falling under this heading, are the exception rather than the rule. Exception is easy. What remains, the rule, are the portions that I am tempted to summarize and skip over.
I am concerned that this is a serious error.
Saturday, June 25, 2011
The Good Girl
Today I watched The Good Girl. It was your standard tale of quiet desperation. A life of dirty kitchens with things left out on counters. Little miseries and retail lighting and insufficient fellows.
It was very sad. Not the boy, Holden. Were I to have read a synopsis this is the character I would have expected to like best. He’s a writer, struggling with inner demons alone. He wants to be understood. I found him repulsive. I found him empty, parasitic, leaking fluid and delusion.
The husband is just bland.
No, I liked her. Despite her ridiculous tan – how was this allowed – Jennifer Aniston handled this well. The sadness had little to do with her acting, though. The premise of the film is that her life is a prison due to decisions she had made earlier. She married the wrong man. She didn’t go to college. She stayed at a dead-end job.
I have a lot of gift cards. This is a popular present combining the flexibility of cash with the assurance that you were remembered. They sit on my desk and I observe them. I like thinking about the different things I might buy. I will go to, for example, Amazon, and examine interesting choices that I might make. A shirt. Some book. Titanium rings. I then close the browser and make a sandwich.
I cannot express how pleased I am that I never got married. I have done incontrovertible things but not that, never that.
“You ever feel like that? Like you gotta escape?” her husband asks.
But she doesn’t escape.
She throws herself on the mercy of the court as women so often do in stories like this. She remakes the same decisions and the lighting and music lead you to believe that things are better somehow, that she accepts this life. No more unfocused stares.
It just sort of starts over, but now there is a baby. If she were trapped before what is she now? The characters seek transfiguration through one another and basically accomplish nothing. Oh, one of them dies.
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Fineskinde Farm
It rang and rang.
“Hello?”
“Hi, is Liz there?”
“Which Liz?”
“Liz O’Brien.”
“Hold on.”
I squirmed and clenched the phone cord. I wiped perspiration onto my pantlegs.
“Hello?”
I didn’t recognize the voice at all.
“Liz?”
“Yes, who is this?”
I told her.
A pause. “Oh my God. Hi!”
“Hi.”
“How did you get this number?”
“From Jessica. I gave her a message for you at the record store. I waited five years and didn’t hear back so I thought I’d call.” My best smile.
She laughed delightedly.
We spoke. She was in college still, in the south. Worked at a library and volunteered at a battered women’s shelter. She was studying English.
“What do you even look like now?”
“Pretty much the same, I guess. I had the Jennifer Aniston thing for a while, but now I’m back to just the standard. How about you?”
I told her.
“Haha, that doesn’t surprise me at all. I always imagined you turning out that way.”
She sang in a punk band. I was post-punk but willing to compromise. I was willing to do all sorts of things.
I was on point like never before. I don’t think I’ve ever been so charming. Every joke landed, timing tight, every nuance noticed. Pretty soon it was like we were children again.
“Do you remember when I threw up on your lap?”
“What?”
“On the bus. We were at Josh’s bus stop and I just turned and threw up all over you. His mom took me inside and called my mom.”
“I forgot about that!”
“The part I most remember is how you barely flinched. You were like a nurse, completely professional, trying to make sure I was alright. Helping me up.”
“I don’t remember that part!”
I do. I should have known and never did. She loved me all along and I never knew.
“What ever happened to Josh?” I asked.
It was getting dark. An hour had passed, maybe more. She had a boyfriend but I didn’t care. He was a placeholder.
“Usually when you talk to someone from your past, it’s awkward and strained. I can honestly say that you’re the kind of person I would want as a friend. We need to talk again.”
I could not agree more.
“Oh, you know what? Do you like writing letters? I’m an avid letter writer. If you write to me, I will write back.”
“That sounds great,” I gushed. “I’ve always wanted a pen pal.”
“Be warned, though. My handwriting is almost unreadable! What’s your address?”
I told her.
“Hello?”
“Hi, is Liz there?”
“Which Liz?”
“Liz O’Brien.”
“Hold on.”
I squirmed and clenched the phone cord. I wiped perspiration onto my pantlegs.
“Hello?”
I didn’t recognize the voice at all.
“Liz?”
“Yes, who is this?”
I told her.
A pause. “Oh my God. Hi!”
“Hi.”
“How did you get this number?”
“From Jessica. I gave her a message for you at the record store. I waited five years and didn’t hear back so I thought I’d call.” My best smile.
She laughed delightedly.
We spoke. She was in college still, in the south. Worked at a library and volunteered at a battered women’s shelter. She was studying English.
“What do you even look like now?”
“Pretty much the same, I guess. I had the Jennifer Aniston thing for a while, but now I’m back to just the standard. How about you?”
I told her.
“Haha, that doesn’t surprise me at all. I always imagined you turning out that way.”
She sang in a punk band. I was post-punk but willing to compromise. I was willing to do all sorts of things.
I was on point like never before. I don’t think I’ve ever been so charming. Every joke landed, timing tight, every nuance noticed. Pretty soon it was like we were children again.
“Do you remember when I threw up on your lap?”
“What?”
“On the bus. We were at Josh’s bus stop and I just turned and threw up all over you. His mom took me inside and called my mom.”
“I forgot about that!”
“The part I most remember is how you barely flinched. You were like a nurse, completely professional, trying to make sure I was alright. Helping me up.”
“I don’t remember that part!”
I do. I should have known and never did. She loved me all along and I never knew.
“What ever happened to Josh?” I asked.
It was getting dark. An hour had passed, maybe more. She had a boyfriend but I didn’t care. He was a placeholder.
“Usually when you talk to someone from your past, it’s awkward and strained. I can honestly say that you’re the kind of person I would want as a friend. We need to talk again.”
I could not agree more.
“Oh, you know what? Do you like writing letters? I’m an avid letter writer. If you write to me, I will write back.”
“That sounds great,” I gushed. “I’ve always wanted a pen pal.”
“Be warned, though. My handwriting is almost unreadable! What’s your address?”
I told her.
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
The Centrifuge
The potential energy that clung to this body to reprimand and retard is forced now to the perimeter. It is released as heat and I feel it radiate from my person. I am heat. Netted muscle knits in advancement. A feeling of well-being settles upon us now as we affiliate with this, the world of common and communicable experience. I am jarred into wakefulness. I am pried from the abstract. Standing in the center of the sigil, gloriously present.
We are nearing the end of our exile.
My fear was always that there were a certain, fixed number of resources to allocate. I have come to suspect that this is not the case. Okay, really it was absurd – a revenge fantasy of the impotent. To test this hypothesis, however, it is necessary to construct a worthy vessel. A bearer befitting the borne. This is Unified Field Theory shit, kids.
Still, there is some property of physical activity that interferes with imagination. I use the word imagination for want of a better term. Imagination is not what we think it is. It is not simply a fictive picture show derived of contained chemical happenings. It is something far, far stranger.
I suspect that coma patients, opium addicts, and autistics are furthest along this axis. What they see and know is otherworldly, unique to each, and incommunicable. They cannot access this middle band, the wavelength on which communication is possible. What they can access is pretend and yet not false, or so goes the supposition. Related to this are art, dreaming, and creative enterprise generally, but also barking lunacy in its many shades. The capacity to make and alter is to fashion form from nothingness. To remake some portion of the material world. Is that not the very basis of power?
At the opposite end, of course, we have simple machines such as the lever. We mostly fall somewhere in between. I am moving left and am pleased to do so. It is easier and less dangerous. I spin and burn. Watch me shine.
I can still feel it. It’s not gone – not even dormant – but waiting, perhaps have fallen back to take position in marrow or vertebral crevice. It lurks and bides its time. Someday it will win. I know this; have always known this. The important thing is that it will not be soon.
In the present it is time for change. It is time to stand and take what is mine.
We are nearing the end of our exile.
My fear was always that there were a certain, fixed number of resources to allocate. I have come to suspect that this is not the case. Okay, really it was absurd – a revenge fantasy of the impotent. To test this hypothesis, however, it is necessary to construct a worthy vessel. A bearer befitting the borne. This is Unified Field Theory shit, kids.
Still, there is some property of physical activity that interferes with imagination. I use the word imagination for want of a better term. Imagination is not what we think it is. It is not simply a fictive picture show derived of contained chemical happenings. It is something far, far stranger.
I suspect that coma patients, opium addicts, and autistics are furthest along this axis. What they see and know is otherworldly, unique to each, and incommunicable. They cannot access this middle band, the wavelength on which communication is possible. What they can access is pretend and yet not false, or so goes the supposition. Related to this are art, dreaming, and creative enterprise generally, but also barking lunacy in its many shades. The capacity to make and alter is to fashion form from nothingness. To remake some portion of the material world. Is that not the very basis of power?
At the opposite end, of course, we have simple machines such as the lever. We mostly fall somewhere in between. I am moving left and am pleased to do so. It is easier and less dangerous. I spin and burn. Watch me shine.
I can still feel it. It’s not gone – not even dormant – but waiting, perhaps have fallen back to take position in marrow or vertebral crevice. It lurks and bides its time. Someday it will win. I know this; have always known this. The important thing is that it will not be soon.
In the present it is time for change. It is time to stand and take what is mine.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)