In Search of Inspiration
New work. An experiment. Vintage Volkswagen.
Hello all,
A warm welcome to all the new subscribers. Wonderful to have you on board.
NEW WORK
Get Yourself a “Think About It Later” Box - A short piece about a technique I’ve been using to filter good and bad ideas while improving focus and attention. It’s more practical than most of my other writing. If you give it a try, I’d love to hear your feedback.
EXPERIMENT I’M RUNNING: INTERNET DIET
Attention is your scarcest resource. I’ve started placing an extremely high premium on my attention and it’s made me painfully aware of how easy it is to get distracted. Despite this increased awareness, I still fall into the trap of checking email and social media too frequently.
The plan: A limited number of check-ins per day. Emails get checked twice daily, and social media is limited to 10 minutes. Yes, these are thumb-sucked numbers.
I suspect that my productivity, focus and overall levels of contentment will improve. I’ll report back next week.
If you’re looking to consume less, create more, or just jump off the social media treadmill, feel free to join me in this experiment. Hit reply on this email if you want to chat more about it.
Alright, enough with the updates. Onto the real thing:
ONE IDEA: AIM TO INSPIRE, NOT TO IMPRESS
It's easy to impress someone. Learn a bunch about a certain subject, find someone who doesn’t know much about it, and tell them what you know. They'll be impressed.
What does impressing them do? Well, nothing.
They haven't gained anything from it. They’ll forget the conversation as soon as they walk away. Your inflated ego will eventually return to its natural state of being. Impressing people means nothing.
Inspiring people is a different story. When you inspire someone, you give them the keys to unlock an entirely new perspective of the world. You motivate them to keep going, to keep improving, to keep fighting. Inspiring someone can change their life.
When you’re inspirational, people relate to you. They learn from you. They connect with you. They genuinely want you to succeed. That’s rare.
How do you inspire someone? Combine knowledge and enthusiasm.
Inspirational people have an undeniable sense of excitement about them. It’s exuded by their voice; it’s exaggerated by their body movements.
The subject is irrelevant. The way they speak about it is unforgettable. With each word that passes out of their mouth, a sense of possibility sweeps over the room like a cloud sweeps over a mountain.
If you're looking to create change, it happens through connection. It happens by making people feel something. It happens through inspiration.
LINKS WORTH VISITING
“It’s not until you tear it apart and start looking at all the various line weights, arrows, text and the sobering realisation: we didn’t always have copy and paste and mathematical precision based artwork tools at our disposal. "
Perhaps it’s impressive feat engineering, or the jaw-dropping design work, or my groupie-like tendencies toward Apple, but the launch of the new M1 Mac’s have had me revisiting the launch page day after day. Regardless of your thoughts on the machine, I suspect that this page design will take your breath away.
Decades apart, yet both pieces of design are equally beautiful.
Thank you for your attention. That’s all for this week. If you’d like to support me, hit that big share button below. If you’re feeling generous, or perhaps, an inkling of inspiration has come-a-knocking, check this out.
Have a great week!
my favorite one yet bud. Good luck with the social media cleanse.