Jason Shen
@jasonshen
Exec coach helping founders and creative leaders rebound and reinvent so they do more of what matters most.
Jason Shen
Seven Surprises for New CEOs
hbr.org
Really good HBR article about tough lessons for new CEOs of bigger companies (2004 but still very relevant)
Why Did We (The English) Start Using Surnames?
youtube.comWe only have surnames because of the Black Death
Don't Edit Before You're Done with a Draft
On that note, don't waste time editing ANYTHING -- not even a misspelled word -- until you're done with a full draft.
When I finished the first draft it was about 100,000 words. The first thing I did was go back to the beginning and delete the first 30,000 of them. They were boring and unnecessary but I had... See more
On that note, don't waste time editing ANYTHING -- not even a misspelled word -- until you're done with a full draft.
When I finished the first draft it was about 100,000 words. The first thing I did was go back to the beginning and delete the first 30,000 of them. They were boring and unnecessary but I had... See more
On Writing Better: 43 Things I Learned from My Insane 2 Years of Study
Bold advice to just put everything on the page before any editing
I spent the weekend playing with ChatGPT, MidJourney, and other AI tools… and by combining all of them, published a children’s book co-written and illustrated by AI!
Here’s how! 🧵 https://t.co/0UjG2dxH7Q
Generative AI and
Gladwell: I get attracted to stories that strike me as having potential. Outliers began, for example, with the chapter on the Jewish lawyers. I was talking to someone whose father was one of those lawyers, and she made this observation: “They are all like my dad. They are all from the Bronx, and their parents were all in the garment industry. They... See more
A Conversation with Outlier Malcolm Gladwell
Ironic that Gladwell thought about groups for a book about outliers
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 owned, in 1865. Sixty-four years later, in 1939, homeless on the streets of Montgomery, he became an extraordinary artist, making magnetically beautiful, dramatic, and utterly original drawings on... See more
The Utterly Original Bill Traylor
Outlier Exemplars and Creativity
Bill Traylor, the ultimate late bloomer
Third, I'm trying to learn more about how these Generative AI systems work more deeply and uncover their creative potential. You've seen my explorations with Midjourney through the cover images of many of the last few newsletters, including this one.
Jason Shen • 131: How to Be Human in the Age of Generative AI
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 components:
And you... See more
Narrative-style writing (fiction and nonfiction) has four major components:
- Action: Things happening
- Dialogue: What people are saying
- Description: The environment around the people and events
- Interiority: The characters internal reactions to the place and action
And you... See more
On Writing Better: 43 Things I Learned from My Insane 2 Years of Study
Nat Eliason on how to improve your narrative-style writing
In the summer of 2004, Dell, a full two years retired from the league, was fully available to teach his eldest son the ways of the jump shot. Ground zero was the half-court adjacent to their Charlotte home, and the two spent hours each day forging a new kind of jumper—a more traditional style that depended on the top-of-the-jump wrist flick most
... See moreErik Malinowski • Betaball
Sometimes a single summer you can learn a skill that sets you up for a lifetime