You know what's better than building things up in your imagination? Building things up in real life.
Ego is certainly there in many of the greatest and most dizzying tales of success - but it's there in some of the greatest stories of failure and self-implosion as well.
Growth hackers don't tolerate waste.
Let's be clear: there was no golden age of journalism. The media has always been bad. And instead of improving, it spent a lot of time and energy making up its own myth.
Every job carries occupational hazards.
Reddit is like any democratic form of government - unless carefully guarded by its leaders and members, its trusts and privileges can be and often are abused.
As I discovered in my media manipulations, the information that finds us online - what spreads - is the worst kind. It raised itself above the din not through its value, importance, or accuracy but through the opposite: through slickness, titillation, and polarity.
The media, when it's functioning properly, protects the public against marketers and their ceaseless attempts to trick people into buying things.
As tough an idea as it often is to stomach, the best way to thrive in a world that requires grunt work is to stop seeing it as grunt work.
I love books. Probably too much for my own good.
My advice to young people would be this: Don't move to New York. It is not where you will find yourself.
Because we make ourselves deaf to feedback, because we overestimate our abilities, because we become consumed with ourselves, we end up subjecting ourselves not just to the inevitable stumbles or difficulties of life but catastrophic, painful failures.
No matter how commonplace or dull your first job's duties seem, chances are you can find something to do that others don't want to and make it your own.
I know how hard authors work on their books and how far out of their element many are when it comes to doing the sales and marketing. So when I see someone doing it wrong and giving bad advice, I do my best to help - even when they're not my clients.
My neighbors don't care that I'm an author. It's inherently ego-inhibiting.
When work impedes on sleep, poor planning is to blame - not superior will power.
Our facts aren't fact; they are opinions dressed up like facts. Our opinions aren't opinions; they are emotions that feel like opinions. Our information isn't information; it's just hastily assembled symbols.
Self-imposed discipline with a bent towards results rather than 'creative' and sustainability spending is unfortunately not the norm in the marketing industry.
Like pretty much every other ambitious person, I always figured I'd eventually move to New York. It is, at this point, half-dream and half-obligation for people trying to do big things. It's the American Dream inside the American Dream.
Brands are essentially forbidden from saying or associating themselves with the Olympics - something that has been commonly owned by Western Civilization since the Greeks - unless they hand over piles of cash to the Games.
