Tom Schmidt

Here are 3 ideas, 2 quotes, and 1 question to consider this week...

"Good enough to make the next post better" versus the "insecurity of perfection that almost always fails and then dies."

First, define success before generating options. A useful output is much easier to recognize when audience, purpose, constraints, and quality standards are visible from the start. This reduces time lost to vague comparison and unnecessary revision.

Scarcity creates one kind of friction. Abundance creates another. In a low-output environment, we spend time trying to produce enough options. In a high-output environment, we spend time trying to filter, assess, and stand behind the options we already have. That is the world many people now find themselves in.

the fastest learning comes from being maximally in over your head, limited only by motivation and pain endurance.

Five Cultural Memes That Spread Through the Organization : (1) Tip of the Spear Focus - always identify and attack the biggest limiter, giving it disproportionate resources; (2) Push Through Roadblocks - admitting you're blocked is expected, hiding blockers gets you in trouble; (3) Scrappiness - cost-sensitive resourcefulness over bureaucratic... See more

Poet, philosopher, and Nobel Prize winner Paul Valéry encourages us not to imitate the acts of great people, but to carry their spirit forward:

"All great undertakings do not consist of doing again what others have done before, but in recapturing the spirit that went into what they did—and would have done differently in a different age."