Jason Shen
@jasonshen
Exec coach helping founders and creative leaders rebound and reinvent so they do more of what matters most.
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 sell yourself and your work. You needed to attract funding. You needed the kind of interpersonal savvy that got you invited to speak at conferences and made people eager to mentor and support you. You... See more
The Weird Nerd comes with trade-offs
A quote from (Katalin Karikó, the co-inventor of the mRNA technology used in COVID-19 vaccines and 2023 Nobel Prize winner.)
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 feel calmer and more secure. I have a sense of security I haven’t felt since I was a young child, living with parents who unconditionally loved me. Now, I care less about what other people think of... See more
Meaning & satisfaction is often found in doing doing what is needed
My motivations here are simple.
In 2023, I'm trying to write more emotionally vulnerable and sensory-rich stories from my life. (From last year: What Getting Sued, Scammed, and Arrested Taught Me About Resilience). In a world where seemingly intelligent advice and nonfiction abounds, the power is in the personal. In addition, expressive and personal
... See moreJason Shen | Cultivating Resilience • 138: Effortless Essays
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
Are you familiar with the midwit meme? So, it’s this bell curve with a guy who doesn’t think very much, then someone who has average intelligence but thinks it’s superior, and then the guy who’s kind of transcended everything and is very intelligent and actually thinks in the same way as the guy who doesn’t think very much. So for me, I think I
... See moreMichelle Huang • "AI for wonder": An interview with Michelle Huang, artist
You can’t escape work
You can escape the employment system. But if you think you’ve left work behind there will be a reckoning
The desire to contribute is human.
Paul Millerdx.comPaul Millerd on the need for human contribution
When you find LOTR characters at a hockey game
A friend of mine is a big Instagram influencer in Mexico (nearly a million followers and deals with lots of brands). As far as I can tell, he is a happy man. He freely admits that he is selling a fake persona, and has achieved peace with it. I asked him if he could do something interesting with his account (from activism to conceptual art). His... See more
Captain Pleasure, Andrés Gómez Emilssonx.comNothing worse than becoming famous / successful with something you don’t believe in
Where rare esoteric wisdom comes from