The most control you can possibly have is how you choose to show up, and where you choose to put your energy. You show up, and then you let others do the same—exactly as they do, exactly as they are. You release expectations of how you want them to be for you. You just let them. In this process, you will be surprised, delighted, and disappointed. T... See more

That labor amounts to constant self-promotion in the form of cheap trend-following, ever-changing posting strategies, and the nagging feeling that what you are really doing with your time is marketing, not art. Under the tyranny of algorithmic media distribution, artists, authors — anyone whose work concerns itself with what it means to be human — ... See more

The neuroscience shows that recognition has the largest effect on trust when it occurs immediately after a goal has been met, when it comes from peers, and when it’s tangible, unexpected, personal, and public. Public recognition not only uses the power of the crowd to celebrate successes, but also inspires others to aim for excellence. And it gives... See more

I define a leader as anyone who takes responsibility for finding the potential in people and processes, and who has the courage to develop that potential.

About half of my friends kind of hate their jobs, so they're moderately unhappy most of the time, but never unhappy enough to leave. This is the mediocrity trap : situations that are bad-but-not-too-bad keep you forever in their orbit because they never inspire the frustration it takes to achieve escape velocity.

The mediocrity trap is a nasty way t... See more

Generosity is not a loan to repay or a debt to settle. It's a gift to appreciate. Yes, you can reciprocate a favor by paying it back. But the best way to honor an act of kindness is by paying it forward.

Writer and activist James Baldwin on what love looks like:

"The longer I live, the more deeply I learn that love — whether we call it friendship or family or romance — is the work of mirroring and magnifying each other's light."

The lesson I learned from this is that it’s easier to hold to your principles 100% of the time than it is to hold to them 98% of the time. If you give in to “just this once,” based on a marginal cost analysis, as some of my former classmates have done, you’ll regret where you end up. You’ve got to define for yourself what you stand for and draw th

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Through my work, I present all my dreams, my fears, my ego, my insecurity, and it takes a level of being OK with being “seen” like that to really create work that speaks to the human condition. I laugh thinking back on an example I can give — I have a dress from one of my first collections that has my nightmares printed on it from when I was a chil... See more