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18 Feb, 4 tweets, 2 min read
The biggest pattern I’m seeing with friends right now is watching them achieve everything they’ve wanted to achieve, only to realize that career success isn’t the dream they were promised
I don’t know @noampomsky personally, but I resonate with her observations here. How it is that our brightest and most talented people ace the SATs and attend the best schools in the world, only to work in.... management consulting.

That’s the trophy we’re chasing?
“I think that the ultimate way you and I get lucky is if you have some success early in life, you get to find out early it doesn’t mean anything. Which means you get to start early the work of figuring out what does mean something.”

— David Foster Wallace
The Arrival Fallacy: The illusion that once we make it, once we attain our goal or reach our destination, we will reach lasting happiness.

(Source: Tal Ben-Shahar, Harvard professor)

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More from @david_perell

David Perell Profile picture
16 Feb
Writing on the computer makes us forget how messy the creative experience is. That's why I like pictures of people's hand-written drafts. They remind us of the messiness of creation and the madness of the creative mind.

Here are David Foster Wallace's drafts of "The Pale King." ImageImageImageImage
David Foster Wallace's editor Michael Pietsch said that reading these handwritten drafts was like seeing a "mind at play." I love that description of the creative process — a mind at play.

Here are the DFW archives from the University of Texas: hrc.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collec… Image
"Roger Federer as Religious Experience" is my favorite David Foster Wallace article because it's so descriptive. To research, he printed the eBay descriptions of various tennis racquets to create these ultra-vivid descriptions.

Great writing comes from effort as much as talent. ImageImage
Read 5 tweets
David Perell Profile picture
15 Feb
A formula to improve at any skill: practice analytically, perform intuitively.

Break down your craft when you’re away from it. Critique yourself, set a strategy, and hire a coach when you need to. But once it’s time to perform, follow your intuition.
Here’s Matthew McConaughey talking about how he uses the “practice analytically, perform intuitively” approach for acting.

He says: “You gotta prepare to be free. Be conservative early, so you can be liberal later.”
Spend enough time studying your craft and you’ll eventually embody the core principles. Like an Olympic gymnast, you’ll know your routine so well that you won’t even need to think about it.

Professional athletes exemplify this approach, as I explore in this thread.
Read 8 tweets
David Perell Profile picture
14 Feb
Elon Musk builds products that customers rave about, controls his distribution instead of relying on PR agencies and the mainstream media, and teams up with Internet-first creators to spread his message.

His reach is unprecedented, but his tactics are worth copying.
Elon has a bigger megaphone than most of the media companies who could interview him. He knows how to team up with people like Joe Rogan and MKBHD, who would rather learn from him than spite him.

The next Tesla may even hire creators to evangelize the company or at least, serve as a paid marketing channel.

Creators are essentially media companies now, which means that the creators of tomorrow will operate a lot like the New York based publications of yesteryear.
Read 5 tweets
David Perell Profile picture
6 Feb
The motto for excelling at any creative work: Get going, then get good.
I first learned this from @jackbutcher. When you start creating things, you want to publish all the time. Doing so gives you feedback, will helps you improve over time.

Another way to think about this is “Imitate, then Innovate.”
Comedians follow the “Get going, then get good” motto all the time. They prepare for Netflix specials by testing material over tons of small comedy clubs across the country. Then they cut the flops and double-down on what works.

(h/t @morganhousel) Image
Read 4 tweets
David Perell Profile picture
4 Feb
Now that creators are becoming investors, creator job boards will soon be everywhere.

Here's why:

1) Every creator attracts a pool of like-minded people.

2) Job boards are low-cost, high-margin businesses.

3) As an investor, companies are always asking for hiring referrals.
Aspects of the recruiting industry will be disrupted by creators who have far-more targeted audiences than big companies like Indeed or Monster ever will. Somebody should build a white-label service for creator job boards, so creators can stay focused on audience building.
William Gibson once said: "The future is already here. it's just not evenly distributed yet." The job boards of the future look a lot like this initiative from @APompliano: a creator-focused, industry-specific marketplace.

Read 4 tweets
David Perell Profile picture
3 Feb
With Jeff Bezos stepping down as CEO, here’s a thread of the best things I’ve learned from him.

1. Be willing to change your mind.

As Bezos famously said: "Anybody who doesn’t change their mind a lot is dramatically underestimating the complexity of the world we live in.”
2. There are two kinds of decisions.

One-way door decisions are irreversible, so make them slowly. Two-way door decisions are the opposite. Since you can go back on them, you should make them quickly. Image
3. Encourage good writing

Amazon’s built a writing-first culture where employees review six-page memos at the start of important meetings. Writing takes longer in the short-term but saves time in the long-term. The memos are structured like a dissertation defense.

Here's how. Image
Read 18 tweets

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