Hidden Genius

Chris Brogan puts it perfectly: “The difference between an audience and a community is which way the chairs are facing.”

When someone asks, “So, what do you do?” you will likely respond with your most impressive identity. For many people, the answer is their job title. For five years, my primary identity was “Polina Marinova, writer and editor at Fortune magazine.”

Kerr had a seemingly contradictory but profound breakthrough: He realized that he wasn’t going to be successful if he idolized his mentors. “The main theme that came across over and over again in these conversations was, be yourself,” he says. “There’s no point in trying to be someone else. You can emulate somebody else, but you can’t be someone el

“It’s pretty simple—you gotta limit inflammation in the body whether it’s through diet, nutrition, or your thoughts,” he says. A balanced diet applies to both food and content.

So he began thinking about two words: “scary” and “dangerous.” Leaving BCG would be the scariest decision of his life, but staying would be dangerous because he wasn’t happy and he would live a life of regrets. There are plenty of things in life that are scary but not dangerous and vice versa. He took the risk, left his job, and founded Samuel Adam

Catmull’s hidden genius lies in his ability to use both sides of his brain, the creative and the logical.

Beliefs are best seen as grayscale—not black and white.

In the 1500s, Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci used a similar process he called “connecting the unconnected,” which meant finding relationships between two totally unrelated subjects.

The Humans of New York comment section has been called “the nicest place on the internet.” As photographer Brandon Stanton publishes moving portraits on his page, the people in his digital community actively engage with his work, posting kind and uplifting comments. In 2012, the page had 64,000 fans. A decade later, the community has grown to more