Life is pretty simple
19 October 2012
Life is pretty simple: You do some stuff. Most fails. Some works. You do more of what works. If it works big, others quickly copy it. Then you do something else. The trick is in the doing something else.
I found this on Kai’s Facebook page. As a photo. I googled it, because I wanted to know who said that. Apparently that quote was falsely attributed to Leonardo Da Vinci. I don’t actually know, if he said smart stuff like that, but I sure as hell know that this quote is not in any way structured like something that a Italian guy from the 16th century would say. And he didn’t. The actual source for this is Tom Peters. A business coach of some sorts. He wrote this piece on not having a corporate strategy for the Chicago Tribune. In 1994. And while his article is smirkily charismatic I don’t fully agree with it. Nor do I completely disagree. It’s one of those things that touches upon the right things without knowing why it actually is right. Anyway, the quote. It’s in the last paragraph and it’s good and it’s something to think about. Not, you know, just read, nod and forget it. It’s one of those things that can be used to reflect upon what you are doing. Try it.
Not obviously related, but I think an interesting thought in relation to ‘the trick of doing sth else’…Paula Sher touches on sth similar in the TED talk about solemn vs. serious design/play (http://www.ted.com/talks/paula_scher_gets_serious.html) , when she talks about ‘doing solemn design because that was what I was expected to do’ instead of serious play…and I think often that’s the trap, expectation and habit…
— Lena · Nov 29, 11:42 AM · #
Lena: The mind and the body. Biologically, we are trying to rely as much as possible on habit. Preservation, security, all those things. Humanities focus shifted only recently from survival to a more intellectual goal. Our biology did catch up with that. Our mind on the other hand is already living in the future.
— Igor · Nov 29, 03:19 PM · #