The pursuit of blogging—and the career, success, and fame I thought would follow—had poisoned my relationship with writing. The promise of getting published and pulling in the big bucks distracted me from my true purpose: doing the real work. The work of writing. I was finding clever and convenient ways to avoid writing. I updated my website. I cre

... See more

the “search” for greatness is often misguided, perhaps because what we imagine to be great, is in fact not that great at all. Instead of speculating what may make you great, get out there and start doing. Do not look for perfection or even greatness, but instead signs of “good” and start making tangible progress.

Howard Aiken—the inventor of the earliest general purpose computer—was never worried about people stealing his ideas. “If your ideas are any good” he’s quoted as saying, “you'll have to ram them down people's throats.” And yet, we think that the moment that we hit the dance floor, all eyes will be on us. The moment we hit publish, the world will ta... See more