Collections

Creativity13
Jason Shen

/// 100 QUESTIONS /// to gain clarity via Alex Morris: Why are we doing this?  Ask that of yourself and the team with regularity. What’s the simplest 

deep ambition4
Jason Shen

Without ambition one starts nothing. Without work one finishes nothing. The prize will not be sent to you. You have to win it. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Writer and programmer Simon Sarris on the value of effort: "If you make lists of lofty goals, it can be easy to leave them to accumulate, as happens

The heights by great men reached and kept / Were not attained by sudden flight, / But they, while their companions slept, / Were toiling upward in the

This is the ultimate trapdoor in the hall of fame; to become a prisoner of one's own persona. The desire for recognition in an increasingly atomized w

be goddamn yourself8
Jason Shen

This is the ultimate trapdoor in the hall of fame; to become a prisoner of one's own persona. The desire for recognition in an increasingly atomized w

There was a period in his career when Seth Rogen would feel terrible after watching a great movie. A writer, actor, and director himself, he’d burn wi

Talent / Strengths / Skills10
Jason Shen

A recent article in The Military Times revealed that there are already autistic leaders in senior positions in the intelligence community, and how mat

This is an example of what’s called a “divergence test” (as opposed to a test like the Raven’s, which asks you to sort through a list of possibilities

People don’t rise from nothing. We do owe something to parentage and patronage. The people who stand before kings may look like they did it all by the

Storytelling / Narrative7
Jason Shen

As a first point, the Hook, we get to know Harry Potter and the story’s context. He lives with his aunt and uncle in a basement. He later discovers th

If you’re totally lost on what to focus on getting better at, focus on braiding. Narrative-style writing (fiction and nonfiction) has four major compo

Don't Edit Before You're Done with a DraftOn that note, don't waste time editing ANYTHING -- not even a misspelled word -- until you're done with a fu

Cultural legacies are powerful forces. They have deep roots and long lives. They persist, generation after generation, virtually intact, even as the e

Redefine Your Ambition1
Jason Shen

Cultural legacies are powerful forces. They have deep roots and long lives. They persist, generation after generation, virtually intact, even as the e

Coaching1
Jason Shen
Gatherings & Relationships10
Jason Shen

it was my daughter’s love that freed me from my delusions of grandeur. It liberated me from the tyranny of trying to prove myself. Since her birth, I

Sign off content27
Jason Shen
Transitions / pivots1
Jason Shen

we are simply incapable of imagining ourselves on the other side of a profound change, because the present self doing the imagining is the very self t

How power works8
Jason Shen

But I was learning that succeeding at a research institution like Penn required skills that had little to do with science. You needed the ability to s

Exponential / Power law3
Jason Shen

This locks toy companies into a challenging bet. Every year, they have to a) predict trends, b) invent them, and c) commit capital to them. All withou

Picking a few hits requires a tolerance for many bad ideas, mediocre ideas, and even good ideas cursed with bad timing. Above all, it requires a busin

As a result of these much larger outcomes we've built a movie-making system that is focused on big hits because the business model can't really absorb

Noticing / Sensemaking3
Jason Shen

My house plants became healthier and died less often once I stopped tracking their watering, stopped trying to use moisture meters or other tools, and

The argument is that accountings of history are not accurate, and can never be accurate, thanks to the narrative fallacy. By its nature, narrative nec

Defying Convention10
Jason Shen

More recently I’ve kept repeating to myself, don’t abandon your vision. Decisiveness is knowing myself well enough to take the plunge, then the rest i

ADHD1
Jason Shen

Hey! Remember when we did a video on MY top 5 fav ADHD strategies? (https://t.co/LeHyoig78P) Well, we wanna do another one featuring YOUR favourite AD

hooks1
Jason Shen
Resources1
Jason Shen
Outlier Exemplars1
Jason Shen

twelve years a slave, from his birth, in Dallas County, Alabama, in 1853 or so, until Union cavalry swept through the cotton plantation where he was o

Jason's Codex1
Jason Shen

🚀 1. You don't need permission to go after wild dreamsLife is short and it's more fun when you're doing something bold. So if you have a grand vision

10x Job Application1
Jason Shen