If you want to achieve more, do less. That is to say, build time into your day, your week, your year for quiet. In our house, following lunch, there is a period of mandated quiet time. It gives everyone a chance to do something they’d otherwise not do: nothing. It could be napping, reading, working on art, or even listening to something specific on headphones—as long as it’s quiet and done alone. For Kayte and I, it’s almost always napping, lol. During that time, we can recharge. We can...
5 months ago • 1 min read
“…We are ‘persuaded to spend money we don’t have on things we don’t need to make impressions that won’t last on people we don’t care about.’” This is Kate Raworth quoting Economist Tim Jackson in her book Doughnut Economics while discussing the power of aspiration in influencing human behaviour. Reading this, I realized that seeing (or at least feeling) this is what kept me from marketing for so long. (And what keeps me from engaging in much of its mainstream still.) I thought of it only as a...
5 months ago • 1 min read
You probably already know this. Perhaps your internal response to this will be, “Obviously.” But it sort of hit me like a tonne of bricks when I heard my internet friend and globe-trotting change-strategist Cassandra Mok say on the Unstoppable Mindset podcast today: “Innovation doesn’t have to mean high-tech.” (A mild paraphrase from the ~28-minute mark.) In that moment, I realized how thoroughly I’ve linked the two concepts (innovation and technology) in my mind. This came as a wake-up call....
6 months ago • 1 min read
Here’s an odd mish-mash of business and fun to start your weekend. I previously wrote about being serendipitously asked into a “LinkedIn Band” after connecting with someone on the platform. Well, today our song made its debut! Check it out => Spotify YouTube (I’m on bass and background vocals/harmonies, NBD :) But wait, there’s more! Saying yes to this unusual opportunity also led to being on an internet Morning Show with the band/team this morning. AND, being in a lo-fi video game, lol. What...
6 months ago • 1 min read
We all hate excuses; we all crave reasons. Act accordingly, James P.S. My excuse for taking an unplanned, unannounced (checks calendar) MONTH off from writing One Creative Moment is that my parents were visiting from the UK, staying with us for 3+ weeks. My reason is that I didn’t make a plan and overestimated the amount of time I’d feel like being in the office. Once they arrived, I realized that life is fleeting; people age quickly past 70, and I wanted to spend every possible second with...
6 months ago • 1 min read
Lawyers (and cops interrogating people in movies) famously only ask questions to which they (think they) know the answers. And, I suppose, given that their purpose is to confirm rather than learn, it’s the right move. But I have a suspicion that the prevalence of that type of questioning in “power” situations makes it seem like a thing that everyone should do. Particularly if they want to be “successful” or project “authority.” (Sorry for all the quotation marks! I wanted to signal that I...
7 months ago • 1 min read
What do you think of when you read that phrase? “Back to reality.” I can remember the exact day I realized there was something off about the fact that, for many, it means “back to the part of life I don’t like/begrudgingly do.” Surely, one’s evenings and weekends could equally lay claim to “reality,” no? Turning the phrase into one of joy rather than dismay. Apparently, I was a bit of an outlier for seeing it that way. I remember being struck by the uphill battle I faced to convince my...
7 months ago • 1 min read
Not to be that “newsletter recommending” guy, having just yesterday drawn your attention to a new one I’m enjoying. But this has to be done and has to be done now. (I had meant to do it before the start date! But, life…) So I’m sharing this in case you would also find it interesting: Craig Mod’s latest pop-up newsletter, “The Return to Pachinko Road.” It’s, as Craig puts it, “…an 18-day pop-up walk, walking 600km from Kyoto to Tokyo along the Tōkaidō (“Pachinko Road”). Starting on May 14,...
7 months ago • 1 min read
Just read the second issue of a promising new newsletter from Finn McKenty. (I know him from LinkedIn, but am most intrigued by what he has to say about making YouTube work.) It included this painfully true quote: “… opportunities usually go to the people who are the most visible, not to the people who “deserve” them.” If you needed an extra boost to help you put yourself out there (or remind yourself why you’re doing it in the first place), there you go. There I go, too! Be seen, James
8 months ago • 1 min read