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The Blog of A.J. Kessler

The Blog of A.J. Kessler - Strategies For Making Art & Getting More Out Of Life · ajkesslerblog.com · American English

Strategies For Making Art & Getting More Out Of Life

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Jan 12, 2016
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  1. Best Books of 2015
    Jan 12, 2016 · original
    I read a lot, at least a book a week, and get asked for recommendations. Rather than continuing to respond privately to emails, I have semi-regularly posted my recommendations here. Below are my favorite reads from 2015, not in any particular order. For anyone looking to read just one book, I would recommend The Fish That Ate the Whale . The Fish That Ate the Whale — Rich Cohen One of the best biographies I’ve ever read, Cohen weaves together the incredible story of Sam Zemmuray, a penniless Russian immigrant who became one of the richest men in the world, the history of the banana, the history and politics of Central America, WWII, and more. Starting as a banana peddler, Zemmuray transformed the fruit business, toppled governments, and changed the course of Central American history. This is a slice of history you’ve never heard before, a business course, and a dramatic story all rolled
  2. Momentum Creates the Ability to Seize Opportunity
    May 7, 2015 · original
    Keep yourself as busy as possible. Good opportunities are going to come up along side you. It’s a lot easier to steer into one when you’re already moving than it is to try to catch up to one when you’re stationary. The post Momentum Creates the Ability to Seize Opportunity first appeared on The Blog of A.J. Kessler .
  3. Showing Up
    Jan 21, 2015 · original
    As you go through life, you’ll meet the people who have it all figured out. The girl who, in 8th grade, starting taking zoology classes at the local junior college because she knew she wanted to be a Giraffe veterinarian. The kid who practiced the clarinet for 8 hours a day since 3rd grade, not because his parents made him, but because he loved it and knew he wanted to be in the New York Philharmonic. The college freshman with a 20-year plan to become a senator. The guy in the next cubicle who has mapped out every step to become the next CEO. This can be debilitatingly intimidating. It can make you feel like a failure just because you don’t have your entire life planned out. But the truth is, almost nobody knows what they want to do with their life. Even fewer people have any idea what steps they should take to accomplish their goals. So how do successful people end up being successful,
  4. Creating v. Finding
    Jun 9, 2014 · original
    The problem, often not discovered until late in life, is that when you look for things like love, meaning, motivation, it implies they are sitting behind a tree or under a rock. The most successful people recognize, that in life they create their own love, they manufacture their own meaning, they generate their own motivation. – Neil DeGrasse Tyson The post Creating v. Finding first appeared on The Blog of A.J. Kessler .
  5. Contentment
    Apr 10, 2014 · original
    Once you obtain a certain level of success, some people start to act strangely. They wonder aloud why you’re not content with what you’ve already achieved. Whether it stems from a desire to see you not get further ahead or something else, they begin see the ambition that got you to this point as a flaw. Now that you’re at their level, or slightly above, they become angry that you’re not stopping. That you’re not content. But there’s a difference between being satisfied and being content. Satisfaction is about looking behind you and seeing work that you’re proud to have accomplished. Contentment is about looking forward and seeing nothing that needs doing. Content people don’t change the world. They don’t need to. They’re already content. The post Contentment first appeared on The Blog of A.J. Kessler .
  6. First Principles: Internalization
    Apr 7, 2014 · original
    As a 10 year old, I was barely taller than a washing machine and I weighed less than half as much. But I was fast, so I played on a competitive soccer team. Or, more accurately, I played when the bigger, stronger, more skilled kids needed a breather. Why didn’t I get more playing time? Obviously, my coach just didn’t like me, I told myself. I couldn’t even convincingly lie to myself. Even before my mom gently pointed it out, I knew I wasn’t playing as much as I wanted to because I wasn’t as good and didn’t practice as much as the best kids on the team. It had nothing to do with my coach, and everything to do with me. Ouch. But realizing it was my fault made me practice more. As a result, I got better and I played more. Part of developing the mindset that’s crucial for success is learning to internalize rather than externalize. How many successful people do you know that blame every one o
  7. Reading Recommendations – 2014Q1
    Apr 1, 2014 · original
    In school, we read a lot of fiction. We are instructed to look for similes and metaphors, to search for the hidden meaning in the text, to guess at what the author was really implying or thinking about. Because of this, even the captivating books can become stifling. The books that start out that way are almost unbearable. This is why I quickly stopped reading fiction after high school, instead preferring non-fiction that could teach me something about the world. That’s a shame though. As they say, non-fiction can teach you something about the world, and fiction can teach you something about yourself. Good fiction can do both. With that in mind, I make a conscious effort to read more fiction. This quarter, I read two great works of fiction, which prompted me to finally dig into my Africa-related stack of books that had been on my “to-read” list for years. Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredib
  8. First Principles: Mindset
    Feb 2, 2014 · original
    The worst thing my parents ever told me was that I was smart. When they bought me a toy piano when I was four, my dad tried to teach me to peck out the notes of Mary Had A Little Lamb. When I couldn’t to do it after about 90 seconds, I didn’t even try to play an instrument for another 10 years, convinced that I just didn’t have the talent to do it. In first grade, my class wasn’t taught how to do long division. The next year the school put me into the combined second/third grade class. I was too embarrassed to admit that I didn’t know how to do long division and fell months behind the rest of the class. I thought if I was smart, that meant I knew the answers, that I was capable. If I didn’t know the answer or didn’t know how to do something, that was evidence that I wasn’t smart. If I had to put effort into something, it was a sign of my own shortcomings. Anything that I didn’t know or w
  9. Best Books I Read In 2013
    Jan 1, 2014 · original
    I read a lot and am often asked for recommendations. Rather than continuing to respond privately to emails, I decided to post my recommendations from 2013 here. I’ll continue to post recommendations, either in separate posts or under some consolidated archive. These are roughly in the order I read these throughout the year, not in order of my favorites. For anyone looking to read just one book, the best book I read in 2013 was probably Matterhorn . Midnight in Peking: How the Murder of a Young Englishwoman Haunted the Last Days of Old China by Paul French 1937 Peking is colonial China on its last legs. Still, remnants survive of the opulent enclave the Brits managed to carve out, complete with old-world drinking parlors and opium dens, even while the Japanese surround the city. This is the backdrop for Paul French’s investigation of the brutal murder of Pamela Werner, daughter of a Briti
  10. Superiority
    Jul 28, 2012 · original
    “There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.” – Ernest Hemingway The post Superiority first appeared on The Blog of A.J. Kessler .
  11. Declare Victory or Failure
    Jul 27, 2012 · original
    Whenever you start a project, you should have a plan for finishing it. One outcome is to declare victory, to find that moment when you have satisfied your objectives and reached a goal. The other outcome, which feels like a downer but is almost as good, is to declare failure, to realize that you’ve run out of useful string and it’s time to move on. I think the intentional act of declaring becomes an essential moment of learning, a spot in time where you consider inputs and outputs and adjust your strategy for next time. If you are unable to declare, then you’re going to slog, and instead of starting new projects based on what you’ve learned, you’ll merely end up trapped. I’m not suggesting that you flit. A project might last a decade or a generation, but if it is to be a project, it must have an end. – Seth Godin This is the 500th post on this site. Nearly a year and a half ago, I starte
  12. The Greatest Enemy of Knowledge
    Jul 26, 2012 · original
    The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge. – Stephen Hawking The post The Greatest Enemy of Knowledge first appeared on The Blog of A.J. Kessler .
  13. Perspective, Pt 2
    Jul 25, 2012 · original
    A Jewish man was sitting in a Starbucks reading an Arab newspaper. A friend of his, who happened to be in the same store, noticed this strange phenomenon. Very upset, he approached him and said: ‘Moshe, have you lost your mind? Why are you reading an Arab newspaper?’ Moshe replied, ‘I used to read the Jewish newspapers, but what did I find? Jews being persecuted, Israel being attacked, Jews disappearing through assimilation and inter marriage, Jews living in poverty… I got so depressed! So I switched to the Arab newspaper. Now what do I find? Jews own all the banks, Jews control the media, Jews are all rich and powerful, Jews rule the world. The news is so much better!’ The post Perspective, Pt 2 first appeared on The Blog of A.J. Kessler .
  14. How to Say Nothing in 500 Words
    Jul 24, 2012 · original
    Paul McHenry Roberts (1917-1967) taught college English for over twenty years, first at San Jose State College and later at Cornell University. He wrote numerous books on linguistics, including Understanding Grammar (1954), Patterns of English (1956), and Understanding English (1958). Paul also wrote this essay , which is a fantastic read not only for those looking to improve their writing, but for those looking to improve their thinking as well. Some of my favorite bits: Avoid the Obvious Content Say the assignment is college football. Say that you’ve decided to be against it. Begin by putting down the arguments that come to your mind: it is too commercial, it takes the students’ minds off their studies, it is hard on the players, it makes the university a kind of circus instead of an intellectual center, for most schools it is financially ruinous. Can you think of any more arguments, j
  15. Systematic Learning
    Jul 23, 2012 · original
    Chris Guillebeau was interested in building a lifestyle business (i.e. something that requires little startup capital and lots of flexibility). Instead of picking a business at random, Chris did what we should all do. In The $100 Startup , Chris started by surveying 1500 entrepreneurs about their businesses. From there, he systematically interviewed several hundred of those entrepreneurs to find out what made their businesses work. That’s a lot of work. But if you’re going to invest a big part of your life, and possibly a big part of your bank account, why wouldn’t you do that work? Why don’t we? As students, why don’t we study the most successful students to find out what made them successful? As teachers, or accountants, or doctors, or lawyers, or whatever it is you want to do, why don’t we systematically study the most successful people in our professions to find out why they were suc

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