Reading Notes for:

Click here for a Bio on Kevin Kelly

another bunch of unsolicited advice. 

Compliment people behind their back. It’ll come back to you.

Most overnight successes — in fact any significant successes — take at least 5 years. Budget your life accordingly.

This one is huge.  The key is to stay at it.  Don’t stop.  Where passion becomes irreplaceable. 

You are only as young as the last time you changed your mind.

You are not your ideas. You can change them and keep your self-respect.  It’s healthy to make new decisions based on new information.  

Sustained outrage makes you stupid.

And this is from a guy who has made A LOT of money off of tech and social networks.

The worst evils in history have always been committed by those who truly believed they were combating evil. Beware of combating evil.

If you can avoid seeking approval of others, your power is limitless.

Be the change you wish to see.

When brainstorming, improvising, jamming with others, you’ll go much further and deeper if you build upon each contribution with a playful “yes — and” example instead of a deflating “no — but” reply.

One the perspectives that I have cultivated with the best yield is learning to tell people No in a way that I’m agreeing with them. It’s a weird little sneak that helps in so many ways.  “Heck yeah, I will sell you product x for $y.  Just need you to buy  10,000 of them so we can do that at scale enough to make it profitable.”  or “Yeah, I will gladly give you a 30% discount.  I just have to figure out how to do it without getting fired and/or bankrupting the company.  Unfortunately that’s not gonna be today.”