Kevin Kelly offers us a series of unsolicited advice celebrating his 68th birthday.
I have selected my favorites. The whole list is posted on his website The Technium.
• Learn how to learn from those you disagree with, or even offend you. See if you can find the truth in what they believe.
• Being able to listen well is a superpower. While listening to someone you love keep asking them “Is there more?”, until there is no more.
• Gratitude will unlock all other virtues and is something you can get better at.
• Pros are just amateurs who know how to gracefully recover from their mistakes.
• Extraordinary claims should require extraordinary evidence to be believed.
• Don’t be the best. Be the only.
• Trust me: There is no “them”.
• To make something good, just do it. To make something great, just re-do it, re-do it, re-do it. The secret to making fine things is in remaking them.
• Show up. Keep showing up. Somebody successful said: 99% of success is just showing up.
• Separate the processes of creation from improving. You can’t write and edit, or sculpt and polish, or make and analyze at the same time. If you do, the editor stops the creator. While you invent, don’t select. While you sketch, don’t inspect. While you write the first draft, don’t reflect. At the start, the creator mind must be unleashed from judgement.
• If you are not falling down occasionally, you are just coasting.
• Perhaps the most counter-intuitive truth of the universe is that the more you give to others, the more you’ll get. Understanding this is the beginning of wisdom.
• You are what you do. Not what you say, not what you believe, not how you vote, but what you spend your time on.
• Art is in what you leave out.
• How to apologize: Quickly, specifically, sincerely.
• Eliminating clutter makes room for your true treasures.
• The universe is conspiring behind your back to make you a success. This will be much easier to do if you embrace this paranoia.
My one piece of unsolicited advice? Read Kevin Kelly’s 68 Bits of Unsolicited Advice. It’s great.
Which are your favorites? Please comment below.
