Author Archives: David Shirley

I came across another great idea from James Clear. If you don’t know who this is you can buy his book Atomic Habits here.  His idea is this: “The world rewards you for value provided, not time spent.” I needed this. It reminds me to ship. To stop trying to make something perfect and justContinue reading “The Asocial Society”

Creating new value is what’s important. To succeed, create new value. Or, create new value from old value. In a new and better way. Many jobs don’t require creating new value. But rather require people to perform a repetitive task day in and day out year after year. How are you spending your time. AreContinue reading “Create or Die”

The eight hour work day trap. Why thirty minutes a day is all you need to change the world. Or at least run a business. It’s not about doing more. It’s about doing the right thing. But then the almighty question is—what is the right thing to do? This post is about the fundamental questionContinue reading “Spend Time Wisely Grasshopper”

Be a creator. Not a consumer. A creator makes new value. Value people pay for in the form of time and or money.  Consuming doesn’t lead to new value. Examples of creating is writing a poem, posting a podcast, writing a mission statement, writing music, and a *job. *I put jobs in the creator section.Continue reading “Creator Vs Consumer”

Selfish – (of a person, action or motive) lacking consideration for others; concerned chiefly with one’s personal profit or pleasure. In this post I’d like to tackle the idea that we can’t do things for other people. We can only do things for ourselves. And how useful this can be.  When we donate money. WeContinue reading “You Beautiful Selfish Human”

Facts are made up. Gravity existed before we gave it a name. I don’t need to know the word “gravity” to know I shouldn’t take a long walk over a short cliff.  Facts don’t matter. The creator of Dilbert made this point in his book Win Bigly. This book is largely about the 2016 electionContinue reading “Facts Don’t Matter”

Nutrition is a story. Much of these stories are influenced by family and cultures and societies. What we eat has little to do with nutrition and more to do with the story we tell.  We have stories like:  Meat is bad because of cruelty to animals.  Plants are good because of vitamins and minerals.  WholeContinue reading “Food Stories”

We are all teachers at some point. Be it to our kids, our students, our peers. I am a big believer in teach to learn. I believe knowledge will come faster and in greater detail when it is taught as opposed to only learned from books, coaches and doing. Of course the best is toContinue reading “Teach to Learn”

The easiest way for me to write is what I call stream of consciousness. I write my thoughts. The point is to write with little consideration to punctuation and grammar. Without fear. With no thoughts like “it must be good.” Just let it all come out on the computer screen. Simply pick a topic aContinue reading “Stream of Consciousness”

Writers block exists because we are trying to get it right the first time. But of course we are not going to get it right the first time. So it is better to vomit on the page. Get all the thoughts and ideas out. Because that is what editing is for. To get it rightContinue reading “Write to Create”