Agalia Tan

@agaaalia

Senior Strategist at We Are Social

RADAR Chapter Lead for Singapore

musingsandmore.substack.com

From ‘The Dip’ by Seth Godin
the real success goes to those who obsess
Successful people don’t just ride out the Dip. They don’t just buckle down and survive it. No, they lean into the Dip. They push harder, changing the rules as they go. Just because you know you’re in the Dip doesn’t mean you have to live happily with it. Dips don’t last quite as long when you whittle at them

— The Dip
a lot of times ideas and projects are formed out of a more ambient kind of thinking and talking and doing. Research is not always this thing of sitting down and concentratedly looking through archives or something.
from An Interview with Spencer Chang | Are.na Editorial
The irony of organizing your life around mistake-avoidance is that, rather than making you feel calmer, it keeps you in an anxious state, ratcheting up the stakes of your life until you’re moving through it like you would a decision tree, each notable occurrence redirecting you toward a different destination. We’re meant to be. Wait no, we’re doome... See more
from #181 Dear Baby: Am I fit to be a parent?
Every “overnight success” is the result of years of thankless work. Success comes not from great acts of genius but from doing lots of small things consistently
from 23 Truths I Wish I Knew at 23
"Whether you are an adult or child, your first attempts will often seem unimportant or foolish.

The open mic night at a nearly empty bar.

The early blog posts that get ignored.

The dance recital on a little stage.

Early attempts are easy to dismiss because they don't seem to amount to much. But you have to do the low stakes stuff to prepare for the

from 3-2-1: When to be patient, why we procrastinate, and the importance of early attempts

Remember how sabrina carpenter was preparing for her moment :”)

Separate the processes of creating 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 write the first draft, don’t let the judgy editor get near. At the start, the creator mind must be unleashed from judgment.

from Interview: Kevin Kelly, Editor, Author, and Futurist by Kevin Kelly

The mathematical genius Alexander Grothendieck once had a metaphor for solving problems. He suggested that instead of forcing open an impossibly hard kernel with a hammer and chisel, one should simply let it sit in water and wait. Over time, the shell softens and opens with ease. This is also true in writing; time is the only non-substitutable ingr... See more

from Epiphanies Come From Waiting

“The feeling of progress is one of the best feelings of all. This is true even when progress is small.”

from An Interview with Spencer Chang | Are.na Editorial

from #181 Dear Baby: Am I fit to be a parent?

from 23 Truths I Wish I Knew at 23

from 3-2-1: When to be patient, why we procrastinate, and the importance of early attempts

from Interview: Kevin Kelly, Editor, Author, and Futurist by Kevin Kelly

from Epiphanies Come From Waiting

from 3-2-1: On progress, friendship, and how to improve your writing