Jason Shen
@jasonshen
Exec coach helping founders and creative leaders rebound and reinvent so they do more of what matters most.
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 explanation?
What reaction should all the creative achieve?
What’s your most controversial opinion?
What little frictions exist that might bleed out the work if allowed to compound?
Are you solving a
How to sharpen your ideas
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 themselves. But in fact they are invariably the beneficiaries of hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies that allow them to learn and work hard and make sense of the world
... See moreMalcolm Gladwell • Outliers
1. RESULT
Result thumbnails feature a visualized result
Whether it's a physical product or a skill, the curiosity is driven by the questions:
"How did they do it?" and commonly, "How can I do it, too?"
The more sought-after the... See more
Each example is also a great way to think about how to hook someone into a story:
Result—how did they get that?
Transformation—how did they go from this to that?
Comparison—what’s different between experience A and B?
Novelty—I’ve never thought about that thing before
Story—I need to know what happened with that
Moment—I need to know exactly what happened next
Getting the last laugh (black bird watcher)
if you want a relationship to last a long time, somehow you have to keep the scar tissue from building up. And that's really hard. So, when there's an issue, you somehow have to resolve it where there is zero lingering animosity. Nobody is even a little bit upset. Because even a little upset, that scar tissue that accumulates, that never goes away
Talk Given by John Ousterhout About Sustaining Relationships
You have to clear out any lingering resentment if you want something to last
A lovely comic about a one-man pizza shop
Dean Simonton, a psychologist, has spent his career studying creative productivity. He has found that even creative geniuses, what some may call David Guetta, have a hard time recognizing when they have a hit. Simonton spent some time studying Beethoven and spoke about him,
“Beethoven’s own favorites among his symphonies, sonatas, and quartets are... See more
“Beethoven’s own favorites among his symphonies, sonatas, and quartets are... See more
You truly never know
Anton Chekhov once observed that the worst thing life can do to human beings is to inflict humiliation. Nothing, nothing, nothing in the world can destroy the soul as much as outright humiliation. Every other infliction can eventually be withstood or overcome, but not humiliation. Humiliation lingers in the mind, the heart, the veins, the arteries... See more
So many villain arcs begin from humiliation
Noah Kagan hiring high schooler to create content plus his own Free Work to job story