I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
I cannot describe how awesome that commencement speech was.
EDIT: I have linked to the video a billion times but here is the transcript
“Thank you for anybody that didn’t believe, because they motivated us to break our boundaries,” he said.
“We don’t know what the reviews will be, we don’t know what they will say, but I got a chance to go to Italy and feel those fabrics. I begged Louis Vuitton to let me do more shoes after my shoes sold out in two weeks, and they did not. I begged Nike, I begged this company to let me do it. And I took out motherf—ing loans to get the best models, to get the best designers, to get the best venue. I gave you everything that I had.“This is my first collection. Please be easy. Please give me a chance to grow. This is not some celebrity s—. I don’t f— with celebrities. I f— with the creatives in this room, the amazing people who spend every day of their life trying to make the world a more beautiful place.
“The amount of people that tried to get me a celebrity f—ing deal. They said, ‘You need to do boot-cut jeans, or you won’t sell.’ Shut the f— up ! Or Hedi Slimane in the motherf—ing Mercer, sitting with me, saying, ‘Stop giving them your ideas, Kanye. Do your own thing.’ Hedi Slimane! To feel so frustrated. And I thank anybody who came to this party, everybody who supported, everybody who believed, because people thought it was a joke, and maybe people still do, but I can only grow from this point,” he concluded.
Regardless of what you think of the man, you can’t knock the passion.
Maybe it is the family business side of me talking but I really think that you have to be bats#*t crazy to do your own thing, the commitment, the hours and just plain not knowing what will happen is enough to drive you cuckoo if you try to rationalise it.
Back in my high school days Liverpool St Chinatown was known for one thing, Mamma’s Kitchen. To many of us was the home of the $6 spaghetti, which was the kind of food where you try not to think about what corners were cut to make the price. This mindset did wonders during my uni days (Dixon House being the main culprit).
Fast forward to the present and here I was again, at The Dip (in the GoodGod Bar) right next to where Mamma’s Kitchen used to be.
From my 3 visits there I have come to the following conclusions.
So there you have it, a fun little place. Approved.
Nachos. Go for the pulled pork. It may change your life.
Good God Good Dog. Pulled pork on a hot dog, if the nachos didn't change your life this might.
Only dessert I ever tried. Cookies n cream, the salted caramel ice crew was nice but not life-changingly brilliant.
It weighs heavily on my mind that I am less than 12 months away from a “milestone” year, a term which I despise. Instinctually I’d react by thinking about my achievements, goals and where I would want to be before that day.
Then the second phase, “bargaining” begins. Then you say to yourself “you haven’t done that badly have you?”
We can see inevitably where this train of thought is going. I also know it is even worse to do these mental gymnastics routines while things aren’t going your way. But it’s inevitable.
Today for example I asked myself how I would feel if I was to conk out tomorrow. The expected outcome would be a surge of inspiration, positivity and rainbows. Instead I got this:
“I’d barrel through the gates indifferent, with a mortagage and engulfed in emails, spreadsheets and an unfinished to-do list.”
Positive.
I stewed on the thought, shrugged my shoulders and said to myself “so be it.”
I actually managed to get work done. Because in my glorious mind acceptance dropped all burdens of expectation. And if this is how I feel then anything better is a bonus.
Sometimes we need to get out of our own way to move ahead.
A few weeks ago Steve Jobs stepped down as the CEO of Apple and although he still has a role at Apple it didn’t stop people from posting their favourite moments. So here is mine (I just happened to be fortunate enough to be there in person).
The year was 2007. The iPod was king and I was just settling into my new role at work. To put this in perspective:
For work I got to visit the Macworld Expo in San Francisco, my first trip to the USA. As a special bonus I got a pass to the keynote, this is how it all played out.
Finally John Mayer then took to the stage, played a couple of songs and it was all over.
Long story short. I saw a Steve Jobs keynote in person, possibly his very best one.
And so ends my ‘thank you Steve’ moment.
Special bonus moment. John Mayer was on the street signing autographs afterwards. Then all of a sudden people started running to the other end of the street. The reason why everybody rushed off, Steve Jobs was exiting Moscone. John simply picked up his guitar case and anonymously walked off into the streets of San Francisco.
Bonus bonus. If you want to watch the 2007 keynote you can download it here: http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/apple-keynotes/id27583466
Re-reading one of my favourites (Taken with instagram)
I never quite grasped the concept of a personal manifesto. However after reading one (on a website that shall remain nameless) I am warming to the idea that I should have one or at the very least have some kind of mission statement* that I should hold myself to.
*Note: The words ‘mission statement’ doesn’t sit well with me, on the verge of being annoying because it reminds me of fluffy abstract statements that corporations churn out to sound good but I can’t really think of a better name. My preference would be towards a personal manifesto as it can be more elaborate and detailed. Lets also be honest here, it sounds much better than a ‘mission statement’.
In a standard day I must admit that I can spend too much time focusing on (relatively) minor details, things that won’t matter years down the road, things like the next deadline, a shiny new gadget or bills that I need to pay. With so much focus on these niggly short term issues I have a tendency to lose focus on the big picture, the ultimate ideals and aims that I have as a person. Sure, I have the ideas to achieve these and I can rattle them off if someone asks. But I can’t say the same about the execution of these ideas or how regularly do I work towards these. Do I even have a plan in place to get there? I don’t always know, sometimes I think I do but I have a tendency to forget things, particularly when there is another small fire to fight and honestly in day-to-day life there always is.
I’d like to think that by having something written down, something that I can measure progress against and something that I can read each morning as a reminder then I can always check that I am living to my own stated ideals. It is also something that I can refer to when I am making life altering decisions. At the very least the process of taking these ideals out of my head and onto paper makes it something that exists.
Do you agree anonymous world?
It may sound a bit weird but I’m a big fan of boredom. As long as you play your cards right boredom can be constructive. Success with it hinges on three factors, how quickly you can detect it, finding the reasons behind it and what you do to deal with it.
Detection is key, without it the other two factors won’t come into play. In my mind the greatest example of this was from Michael Jordan after winning 3 straight NBA championships. He was at the absolute top of his game, yet he decides to retire to play baseball. Put simply he couldn’t find any more challenges in the NBA and he found that his ‘love of the game’ was gone. Long story short you can’t fix something if you aren’t honest with yourself about it. Jordan was honest, he needed some new challenges and even though he wasn’t so great at baseball it rejuvenated his love for basketball and it drove him to return better than ever and win 3 more NBA championships. To some extent I think we all have this problem, we are all good at what we do but are we doing it with the same enthusiasm and passion as we should? Are we merely doing a good job? Or are we pushing ourselves to find challenges and obstacles to overcome and to reach the next goal?
The search for reason is the hardest of the three factors. Because deep down inside only you know how and why you ended up in this state. Our minds can fool us sometimes, tell us that it is temporary or that we are being over-analytical but your heart knows. So in the immortal words of Roxette you need to ‘listen to your heart’. Everything that happens in life has a reason, don’t forget this. You can only fool yourself about your personal satisfaction to a certain extent and working purely for money can only take you so far.
Managed to get this far? Now we get to the fun part. Plan your way out of it. You get to choose – will your boredom be cataclysmic or a catalyst? How honest you were with your reasoning will determine your success at this stage. Ideally your reasoning should light a fire inside you to find a direction. You don’t need to plan out a entire personal renaissance but at the very least you need to know what makes you tick, get it all on a list, no matter how absurd it is. Once you’ve done this, take a step back and go through what you have. Is there a pattern? Is there something that you can look into further? Don’t panic too much if you are worried that you don’t have x,y or z. Skills and education can be acquired by dedication and application (if you really want something you will find a way).
Quick fixes? None really. You can binge, buy and escape boredom but these are temporary and unrewarding. Want something that lasts? Something that you can always rely on to get out of a bored patch in life? Get a plan.
More from my ‘fine art’ collection (Taken with instagram)
Like many people out there I looked forward to this long weekend as I saw it at a chance to slow down a bit and escape the daily grind.
And I did so by going to work.
To me the daily grind is not going to work itself but the mundane work involving some combination of spreadsheets, databases, emails, meetings and phone calls. In our business these are essential, but that doesn’t make it fun. In the end I get this work done but I don’t feel like I have achieved much.
Today however I went in to work later than usual, closed all of my usual programs and worked on a side project, one which I have unsuccessfully tried in the past. As an added bonus I allowed myself to get distracted (without the guilt) and ate badly.
I left work at 5pm, fulfilled and extremely excited for things to come.
As a result I have come to the following conclusions:
*Just to make it clear, this means fun work is to have equal importance to essential work and not unceremoniously pushed aside because my time management skills are poor.
With this commitment I know that I am moving towards achieving something daily. It might not always be gold standard work (and I find this difficult to accept) but with being stagnant as the other option I’ll just have to live with it.
Thoughts?
