When I was younger, I was skateboarding a lot. I was listening to music and skateboarding. There were two songs, that are widely different: DJ Shadow’s “Building Steam With a Grain of Salt,” and Bob Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice It’s All Right.” And I remember skateboarding to them and they made me just stop. And the world felt so cool. I would look a... See more
"I get a front row seat [with] some of the most successful, beautiful, incredible people in the world," Emma expressed. "And when you have that seat it becomes very, very clear that there is just absolutely no level of success that will make you in any way happy or content if you do not like who you are or enjoy what you're doing when no one's watc... See more
Koga came to realize as he got older that success is not finite; choice is. He shares, “In your twenties, you’re afforded a lot of choice because you likely have fewer considerations: no mortgage, no health condition, no children or aging parents. As you grow older, your choices tend to narrow—not because you can’t actually do things, but that you ... See more
A very successful friend of mine walked away from everything and lives a very happy life making literal sausage. I’m not kidding. I think about him all the time.
Women are in the midst of a revolutionary reckoning with our ambitions. We’re not resigning en masse—because who can afford to quit her job in this economy?!—but we are trying to figure out a new set of goals and guidance for our professional lives. Thanks to long-simmering inequality and stubborn sexism, clarified by the pain of the pandemic, our ... See more
Here’s something I’m very thankful I was told while I was still in my 20s: that the point of all this “hard work” is to recognize the person it makes you, not what it “gets” you
wholeness isn’t something we acquire by stacking achievements or checking boxes or acquiring products or consumer goods. And I worry about this because I have two small children myself. They are five and six, and I’m thinking often about the world that they’re growing up in and what is that world telling them about who they should be and what succe... See more
Knowing where to go and what to do is the currency that, in the modern aspiration economy, makes curators more important than influencers. They guide their audience through culture by putting forward a selection of images, references, codes, product releases, or memes. Curation gives even mundane objects value by connecting them with a point of vie... See more
I met many aspiring artists in my early 20s. Observing their trajectories since then, I've learned that long-shot careers in the arts (famous singer, actor, songwriter, filmmaker, etc.) are long shots not because success relies on wild luck or rare genius or insane connections. Success stories pretty reliably happen for people who combine three not... See more