All posts filed under: quotes

America’s Unchecked Id

Leave a comment
quotes

Trump’s appetite seems to know no bounds when it comes to McDonald’s, with a dinner order consisting of two Big Macs, two Fillet-O-Fish, and a chocolate malted. Source. Insatiable hunger, lust, greed, and dominance. Freud described the Id as primitive, illogical, irrational, and fantasy oriented. Remind you of anyone? Of course, we as a species need our Id. We need our primitive drive to survive and reproduce. But the Id needs the Ego and Superego. Ceaseless […]

The Art of Monstrous Men

Leave a comment
quotes

Hemingway’s girlfriend, the writer Martha Gellhorn, didn’t think the artist needed to be a monster; she thought the monster needed to make himself into an artist. “A man must be a very great genius to make up for being such a loathsome human being.” (Well, I guess she would know.) She’s saying if you’re a really awful person, you are driven to greatness in order to compensate the world for all the awful shit you […]

You Are The Traffic

Leave a comment
quotes

Yes, everybody understood because we all live in this weird thing together called Hollywood. If we all actually were nice, it wouldn’t work. Disgraced studio exec, Amy Pascal. What’s the point of working your way to a position of power if you just prop up the same shitty power structure you are supposedly unhappy with?

When Experience is Useless

Leave a comment
quotes

US neuroscientists published details of experiments on rats, showing that in certain unpredictable situations, they stop trying to make decisions based on past experience. Instead, a circuit in their brains switches to “random mode”. The researchers’ hunch is that this serves a purpose: past experience is usually helpful, but when uncertainty levels are high, it can mislead, so randomness is in the rats’ best interests. Source.   You gotta know when to hold ‘em, know […]

Conspicuous Authenticity

Leave a comment
predictions / quotes

But by the turn of the millennium cool had ceased to be credible as a political stance, and we have since seen yet another shift, from conspicuous non-conformity to what we can call “conspicuous authenticity.” The trick now is to subtly demonstrate that while you may have a job, a family, and a house full of stuff, you are not spiritually connected to any of it. What matters now is not just buying things, it […]

Criticism at Pixar

Leave a comment
orgdesign / quotes

Pixar Founder, Ed Catmull, shares his secret to improving creative works and fueling the most prolific hit-maker of our times: The Braintrust. You may be thinking, How is the Braintrust different from any other feedback mechanism? There are two key differences, as I see it. The first is that the Braintrust is made up of people with a deep understanding of storytelling, who usually have been through the process themselves. While the directors welcome critiques from many […]

The Network is the Strategy

Leave a comment
orgdesign / quotes

What’s changed is that competitive advantage is no longer the sum of all efficiencies, but the sum of all connections. Strategy, therefore, must be focused on deepening and widening networks of information, talent, partners, and consumers. Brands, in effect, have become more than assets to be leveraged, but platforms for collaboration. Greg Satell

Constructive Uncertainty

Leave a comment
orgdesign / quotes

So, we as individuals and as leaders should actively promote dissent in group decision making, not for the sake of dissent itself, but for its ability to spark divergent thinking and to guide people past the sharing and preference biases lurking in the dark shadows of our minds. Constructive uncertainty is a required skill for the 21st century.