- Process overcomes the poverty of our intentions - When we might get overrun by our [[Cognitive biases]] or our [[Unexamined assumptions]], process helps us stick on track - What does it mean to make creative work happen - People want hacks or shortcuts, but there is no checklist. We have to look for patterns - When definition of a hack is telling an audience exactly what they want to hear. Creative people need to tell their audience something new each time they perform - Often new things require that you appeal to the smallest viable audience rather than the largest possible audience - The Internet is really bad at reaching everyone all at once – it’s much better when you know exactly who content is for - Entrepreneurs get hung up on the feedback they get from people their product isn’t for instead of obsessing about the people it is for - When we say “this is only for these people“ it forces us to confront the reality that it’s either working for those people or it isn’t - The Alt MBA - 30-day course on changing your mind - From Dolly Parton: “find out who you are and do it on purpose“ - It’s better flipped upside down: “do it on purpose and you’ll find out who you are“ - We need to lead with more curiosity – if we try out an idea, we’ll find out if it fits us - We can’t find out who we are from nothing - The three pillars of change - The change you seek to make - Are you here to contribute something or take something? Are you here to challenge and get curious or to protect the status quo? - It’s really hard to be honest with ourselves - The possibility you see - The core skill here is seeing the world as it is, not as you want it to be - It’s not as simple as not having enough information – you likely have the same information everyone else does - The emotional energy you’re willing to put into creating change - Example: education versus learning - Education is some thing that’s forced on us, learning is some thing that’s clearly making mistakes in order to get better - How much energy do I want to spend learning? Sunk Costs are a hard-won gift from our past self. Do we have to accept that gift? * It can be very tempting to accept the gift, even if it no longer serves you * Sunk cost can be very tenacious and we can rationalize it easily * We can also use sunk cost to our benefit - e.g. "I’ve already written a blog post every day for three years, so I really should today too" Making decisions - Cut off whole branches of decisions as no good - When you pick some thing, make sure it’s not just for the novelty - Explore the format and limitations of your decision, and how you could move within those limitations - Once you’ve solved the problem, look at the options - Choose what you’re focused on and what you’re not - We don’t like doing nothing – so if our only choices our doing nothing or doing the thing we want to do we’re going to do the thing we want to do Emotional labor is like to physical labor, both are exerting ourselves in ways that are uncomfortable - We need to labor to grow and be happy - Some people don’t want to be rewarded for their labor, they want to be rewarded for exerting power - Ask yourself: what are you actually producing for others? #podcast #theknowledgeproject