The Vampire Test If, after having out with someone, you feel worn out and depleted, that person is a vampire. If, after hanging out with someone you still feel full of energy, that person is not a vampire. Of course, The Vampire Test works on many things in our lives, not just people – you can apply…
The Blog
Exposure, Upside Down Drawing, Memory Tricks, and Dog Poop
Putting Yourself Out There Sharing things you create is always a little scary. Yesterday, I shared the rough draft of a podcast script. Luckily, I have great friends that read it and said great things to me about it. Shoutout to Jason and Dan. It’s been a goal of mine to share more things this…
Smart Small, Take Risks, Memorize, and Prototype
Starting small to show forward progress I’m dipping my toes into podcasts. First, I’m writing an intro for a podcast about John D. Rockefeller’s youth in the style of Ira Glass. Not a full podcast, just the intro. I’m also not going to do the full podcast unless I really start to love the process.…
John Looking For a Job – first draft of podcast script
Things You Should Know I’ve been working on a podcast intro for the last few days. I gave myself the ultimatum to create a podcast about the youth of John D. Rockefeller using Ira Glass’s formula from This American Life. I’ve been thinking and saying this over the last few days. Each time I hear…
Moving (Forward), Drawing, Book Buying, Gmail.js-ing, and Jazz-Quoting
Forward Progress Forward progress is important in business. Even the tiniest bit of forward progress can catapult you into further action. It has been weeks since I did any work on my cold email projects. Two days ago, I received a response to an email I sent a month ago. This response has me excited for the…
No Mentors, Learning Like Ghengis, and Airplane Inspiration
Do You Need a Mentor? Someone asked “Where do you find mentors online?” on Hacker News last week. Perhaps a better question is, do you need a mentor? A lot of times you will find that you already know the answers to your questions. You just want reassurance. When John D. Rockefeller bought out the…
Lunch-e-ons, Being Sick, Memory Palaces, and Deconstruction
Luncheons My wife liked something I said on twitter! Well, it was actually a retweet. “Never make fun of people for mispronouncing a word. It means they learned it by reading.” — Morgan Housel (@morganhousel) January 11, 2017 Why am I mentioning this? For one, I didn’t know my wife followed me closely on Twitter.…
Confidence, Extraction, Dead Subjects, and 99 Ways to Tell a Story
99 Ways to Tell a Story A new book arrived yesterday and it’s really interesting. It’s call 99 ways to tell a story by Matt Madden. The entire book is literally 99 different ways to tell a story about a man getting up from his work and walking to the refrigerator. That’s it. The entire book.…
Extracting, Practicing, Storytelling, and Johari-ing?
Day 4 – My discipline is getting better, but my titles are getting much, much worse! Practicing Extraction Jay Acunzo uses the term extraction to mean taking a formula used by a storyteller and attempt to tell your own stories using that formula. I plan on practicing that this weekend. I don’t know if this will…
Sleeping, Early Waking, Striping, and Reading
Another adventure into what’s going on in my head and what I’m doing. It’s day 3 of the Daily Digest. I’m not sure when I’ll stop numbering these. SLEEP!!! Yesterday I talked about how I wasn’t getting enough sleep. Last night, I decided to put on my headphones and listen to two sessions of Headspace…