Alison Zamora

I am relentless about releasing work into the world.

I think one of the curses of being a human creative is that you can’t see what you want to improve until you press publish, and let yourself be seen. Release, release, release. This is the only way you learn. The power is not in the success of the piece — the power is in the releasing.

Once you've read Anna Karenina, Bleak House, The Sound and the Fury, To Kill a Mockingbirdand A Wrinkle in Time, you understand that there is really no reason to ever write another novel. Except that each writer brings to the table, if she will let herself, something that no one else in the history of time has ever had. And that is herself, her

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A question worth asking:

When there is so much on the web, it is easy to fall prey to the impression that this has been done before when you come up with an idea. When this happens, ask: ‘What is my take on this?’

Choice

There isn’t a right answer.

There just isn’t. The game show

where the bells ring and the points

go up and the confetti falls

because you got the answer

is a lie. The preacher who would assure you

of how to attain salvation

is making it all up. The doctor

who knows just how to fix

what ails you will be sure

of something else tomorrow.

Every choice will

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There’s something freeing in accepting that I can’t do it all, and that not everything is worth doing just because we started. Sooner or later, we all have to give up most things in life to do a few things well.

‘the provisional life’. A way of living that feels like we’re waiting in the wings for the real thing to start.

At Crown Affair, we spend years developing each product with intention. I didn’t start this business with a built-in audience — I started it because I’m obsessed with hair and wanted to make products I actually use and swear by. Innovation and quality aren’t optional; they’re essential to our survival . Each product has to be better — and it has to... See more

While I could talk about the soul behind our formulas forever, there’s one emotion I’ve returned to again and again since starting Crown Affair: awe .

My friend Michael, a longtime Pixar animator, first put language to it for me. Awe is that rare emotional state where your sense of self dissolves into something larger. For me, it’s wonder and... See more

But when we allow expression (through voice, through body, through presence) we remind ourselves that emotions are not threats. They are signals.