Super loved this by Ann Friedman. For all of you trying to create change in the world either as entrepreneurs or writers or simply by choosing to be kickass instead of kiss ass, you’ve already discovered haters. In Ann’s quest for understanding haters, she created The Disapproval Matrix, which I found to be so perfect, [...]
Tag Archives | Kick-Ass-Ness
Just How Powerful Are You?
By Nilofer Merchant on April 30, 2012 in Entrepreneurship, Featured, Market Power, The Personal Story
When you write online, no one checks to see if you have a journalism degree before they start to read. If you experience an earthquake and want to report on its danger or safety, no one asks your credentials before you report to Ushahidi. And if you were interested a creating a new company, you [...]
Are You Standing Out Today?
People buy two categories of things. The distinct. And the generic. The distinct items are the things that have a limited commodity, that are artisan in nature, that are worth paying a premium for. They stand out for some reason. The generic items are, well, the things you find on Amazon. If I start to [...]
Courage Does Not Roar
Today, I was in a room full of remarkable people, making a list of what qualities make someone remarkable. The predictable elements were listed: Hard-working Resourceful Creative Intelligent/ Smart Organized… After 15 or so elements were listed on the post-it board… courageous was added to the list. When you are courageous (or fearless, bold – [...]
Online is the New City
Richard Florida, the Atlantic editor recently wrote: “Cities are our greatest invention, not because of the scale of their infrastructure or their placement along key trade routes, but because they enable human beings to combine and recombine their talents and ideas in new ways. With their breadth of skills, dense social networks, and physical spaces [...]
Steve Jobs’ Legacy: Design Your Own Life
While there are many things worth celebrating of Steve Jobs’ life, the greatest gift Steve gave us is a way to design our own lives. Steve Jobs was known for being a design god who sweated experience, and pixels and, well, everything. “Design,” he once said, “is a funny word. Some people think design means [...]
Infected with Comparisonitis
I got infected with a terrible disease this week. I didn’t realize it for a bit, but the diagnosis is now complete. I almost don’t want to tell you about it, especially in the gory detail, because it is hideous. It is equally raw, and ugly, and festering. I fear you will find me hideous [...]
The Kick In the Pants
I felt his foot so far up my butt that I could practically taste the leather. All the way from Oakland to our end destination of Los Gatos, he went on and on. And when traffic hit us, and slowed us down to a crawl, I almost wept from the agony of more time on [...]
And, Who Are You?
The quiet and art-filled office space overlooking majestic oak trees, the joy of working with Mike Mace, the significant source of income for our family. These were things I thought of when I thought of what I was losing when shutting down Rubicon. What I didn’t think of until it happened was this: when you [...]
5 Ways to Take Advice
“What do you do?” When I was starting a consulting company called Rubicon back in 1999, my nephew wanted to know what I did for a living. Having just finished running a division of a company where I was responsible for setting and delivering on a specific measurable result, I noticed I was having a [...]