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Showing posts from October, 2015

Energy, Focus, Intellect -> Excellence

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Earlier this year, I was blown away by A Curious Mind: The Secret to a Bigger Life ; I haven't read the book yet.  But the idea that a person - a very successful, very busy person - for ~30 years took the time to meet interesting people from all sorts of different fields, and as he put it "live a bigger life" as a result of it is just so impressive to me.  It's a fantastic lesson in prioritizing things in your life, and following your curiosity. The book is on my reading list - but that isn't what this post is about.  I heard three Brian Grazer interviews (the Daily Show, t he Nerdist and Bill Simmons) over the last couple of months and he impressed me in each -  not just because he wasn't content being the dude behind some of the greatest movies of all time, and responsible (indirectly) for the founding of Netflix and he is the mastermind behind Empire. But a comment he made on the Nerdist, has stuck with me the last few weeks. He said (

Adding the layers - for fun and maybe profit.

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Just over a decade ago, I found myself at an Indian classical music concert. This was pretty unusual for me then, and would be even more unusual for me now. But I had a good friend who has helping organize it and so I found myself both in the audience and enjoying myself. The artist would pause from time to time and say a few things about what he was going to sing next, explaining - sometimes in great depth - what he was singing, it's significance and what he was doing that was different. Somewhere in the middle of the concert, he paused and gently explained why he did this so diligently. "Music is a beautiful thing. Everyone will obviously enjoy it, but if you understand it - really understand it - that is when you can enjoy it even more. So please go home and try to understand this music."  The idea resonated with me. For most things, the more background you have and the more you've invested in it, the more you're able to appreciate it when the thing