Reflections on Advice
Kevin Kelly: 103 Bits of Advice I Wish I Had Known
- Followed by Mark Danowsky’s thoughts & reflections on the advice
Kevin Kelly: Today is my birthday. I turn 70. I’ve learned a few things so far that might be helpful to others. For the past few years, I’ve jotted down bits of unsolicited advice each year and much to my surprise I have more to add this year. So here is my birthday gift to you all: 103 bits of wisdom I wish I had known when I was young.
(Previous years here and here.)
• Kevin Kelly’s bits of advice
- Mark Danowsky’s responses
• About 99% of the time, the right time is right now.
- Yes, if you can afford now
• No one is as impressed with your possessions as you are.
- Unless you are very wealthy
• Dont ever work for someone you dont want to become.
- Sensible advice
• Cultivate 12 people who love you, because they are worth more than 12 million people who like you.
- Definitely true
• Dont keep making the same mistakes; try to make new mistakes.
- Sure, if you can manage that
• If you stop to listen to a musician or street performer for more than a minute, you owe them a dollar.
- Fair enough
• Anything you say before the word “but” does not count.
- Disagree but like “and”
• When you forgive others, they may not notice, but you will heal. Forgiveness is not something we do for others; it is a gift to ourselves.
- It’s more complicated
• Courtesy costs nothing. Lower the toilet seat after use. Let the people in the elevator exit before you enter. Return shopping carts to their designated areas. When you borrow something, return it better shape (filled up, cleaned) than when you got it.
- Courtesy is good
• Whenever there is an argument between two sides, find the third side.
- I too like to avoid binaries
• Efficiency is highly overrated; Goofing off is highly underrated. Regularly scheduled sabbaths, sabbaticals, vacations, breaks, aimless walks and time off are essential for top performance of any kind. The best work ethic requires a good rest ethic.
- Rest, recharge, for sure
• When you lead, your real job is to create more leaders, not more followers.
- It’s also recognizing that you’re in a position of power and privilege and as we know this means responsibility
• Criticize in private, praise in public.
- I like this. I actually think you should talk shit behind someone’s back and not to their face. Our lives are hard enough without someone “telling it like it is” constantly
• Life lessons will be presented to you in the order they are needed. Everything you need to master the lesson is within you. Once you have truly learned a lesson, you will be presented with the next one. If you are alive, that means you still have lessons to learn.
- Ok, I think the point here is that if you’re not ready for the lesson you’re not going to get a chance at proving yourself. This is related to the concept that people have to make their own mistakes. Warnings only go so far and can be harmful.
• It is the duty of a student to get everything out of a teacher, and the duty of a teacher to get everything out of a student.
- This is a not way to put it. Boundaries still matter.
• If winning becomes too important in a game, change the rules to make it more fun. Changing rules can become the new game.
- Winning is very American. But yes, move the 3-point line farther back.
• Ask funders for money, and they’ll give you advice; but ask for advice and they’ll give you money.
- Really?
• Productivity is often a distraction. Don’t aim for better ways to get through your tasks as quickly as possible, rather aim for better tasks that you never want to stop doing.
- WFH has revealed some of this. The adage that the tasks you prioritize is the stuff you truly care about is a half-truth. Sometimes the hardest stuff to do is what really matters. This cuts a lot of ways.
• Immediately pay what you owe to vendors, workers, contractors. They will go out of their way to work with you first next time.
- Interesting policy here. Cash up front is a nice gesture. I’d suggest maybe offering 50% up front of you’re convinced the job is going to go well. If you’re unsure, then you’re pretty unlikely to get your deposit back so…
• The biggest lie we tell ourselves is “I dont need to write this down because I will remember it.”
- I write everything down and remember nothing.
• Your growth as a conscious being is measured by the number of uncomfortable conversations you are willing to have.
- I guess I’m winning then. Don’t trust men who say “I’m an open book” but, that being said, I’ll talk to you about anything you wish.
• Speak confidently as if you are right, but listen carefully as if you are wrong.
- Be an active listener. High emotional intelligence (EQ) beats IQ every time.
• Handy measure: the distance between your fingertips of your outstretched arms at shoulder level is your height.
- This is not true.
• The consistency of your endeavors (exercise, companionship, work) is more important than the quantity. Nothing beats small things done every day, which is way more important than what you do occasionally.
- Good repetition is important.
• Making art is not selfish; it’s for the rest of us. If you don’t do your thing, you are cheating us.
- It’s like the thing about putting the oxygen mask on yourself first.
• Never ask a woman if she is pregnant. Let her tell you if she is.
- Definitely true. Also, don’t assume someone calls themselves a woman. Also, don’t assume pronouns.
• Three things you need: The ability to not give up something till it works, the ability to give up something that does not work, and the trust in other people to help you distinguish between the two.
- Sometimes you need to give up on what isn’t working to move forward with what is within your bandwidth and wheelhouse. Don’t just keeping “circling back around” until you’ve worn your heels down.
• When public speaking, pause frequently. Pause before you say something in a new way, pause after you have said something you believe is important, and pause as a relief to let listeners absorb details.
- Yeah but there’s pauses and then there’s Obama style. It works for Obama but that’s because of the person he is. Also, too long a pause sounds pretentious. It sounds like you think the weight of your words is gold. Find a balance.
• There is no such thing as being “on time.” You are either late or you are early. Your choice.
- Uh, what? I guess there is more gray area in expectations is the point here.
• Ask anyone you admire: Their lucky breaks happened on a detour from their main goal. So embrace detours. Life is not a straight line for anyone.
- Life does happen while you’re making plans. Walk the dog though. Don’t let yourself get walked.
• The best way to get a correct answer on the internet is to post an obviously wrong answer and wait for someone to correct you.
- This could go very very badly.
• You’ll get 10x better results by elevating good behavior rather than punishing bad behavior, especially in children and animals.
- Going negative is usually not the best move.
• Spend as much time crafting the subject line of an email as the message itself because the subject line is often the only thing people read.
- Wow, are you kidding me?
• Don’t wait for the storm to pass; dance in the rain.
- I refuse to just “be” in the rain. I dislike it.
• When checking references for a job applicant, employers may be reluctant or prohibited from saying anything negative, so leave or send a message that says, “Get back to me if you highly recommend this applicant as super great.” If they don’t reply take that as a negative.
- There’s more to this.
• Use a password manager: Safer, easier, better.
- Whoa, mind-blowing.
• Half the skill of being educated is learning what you can ignore.
- Sorta true. It’s like the Sherlock Holmes “mind palace”. I know, sounds annoying. Truth is, yeah, you can ignore a lot of stuff that doesn’t really affect you or what you want to be thinking about or working on or engaging with.
• The advantage of a ridiculously ambitious goal is that it sets the bar very high so even in failure it may be a success measured by the ordinary.
- Or you can set the bar low and feel good when you make small victories. This one doesn’t have a right answer. It’s unique to a person’s individual personality and has a lot to do with self-esteem, self-worth, and generally how you move through the world.
• A great way to understand yourself is to seriously reflect on everything you find irritating in others.
- As Kanye says, “Everything I’m not makes me everything I am.”
• Keep all your things visible in a hotel room, not in drawers, and all gathered into one spot. That way you’ll never leave anything behind. If you need to have something like a charger off to the side, place a couple of other large items next to it, because you are less likely to leave 3 items behind than just one.
- Reasonable advice. Also, think of how many people use that same stuff. Icky. A hotel room isn’t your house. Also, if you’re traveling alone, consider getting the double beds for the “food bed” which can also be where you pile your luggage instead of on the floor or other furniture for cleanliness purposes.
• Denying or deflecting a compliment is rude. Accept it with thanks, even if you believe it is not deserved.
- It is kinda annoying when someone can’t take a compliment at all. Let the conversation move forward.
• Always read the plaque next to the monument.
- Disagree. Look at the art. Then consider if you really care about the context.
• When you have some success, the feeling of being an imposter can be real. Who am I fooling? But when you create things that only you — with your unique talents and experience — can do, then you are absolutely not an imposter. You are the ordained. It is your duty to work on things that only you can do.
- This sounds super pompous. Imposter syndrome is real. You just keep doing your thing and eventually you’ll realize you’re doing it better than you were a few years ago. Stay the course.
• What you do on your bad days matters more than what you do on your good days.
- Please explain. You can be differently productive on bad days. You can engage in acts of “self care”. You can take a recovery day. You can try to do your thing (say, write or paint) even when in an unusual headspace where you wouldn’t be inclined—this can produce something surprising.
• Make stuff that is good for people to have.
- No one needs a second panini maker.
• When you open paint, even a tiny bit, it will always find its way to your clothes no matter how careful you are. Dress accordingly.
- This is true.
• To keep young kids behaving on a car road trip, have a bag of their favorite candy and throw a piece out the window each time they misbehave.
- Wow, dick move man. Dick move.
• You cannot get smart people to work extremely hard just for money.
- “Smart” isn’t the operative word here. People that care about more than money often take a broader perspective. If you’re limiting them to working on bullshit they are not going to be happy and will only be begrudgingly compliant.
• When you don’t know how much to pay someone for a particular task, ask them “what would be fair” and their answer usually is.
- I’ve found this to be the case.
• 90% of everything is crap. If you think you don’t like opera, romance novels, TikTok, country music, vegan food, NFTs, keep trying to see if you can find the 10% that is not crap.
- Good attitude. If something catches on there is usually a semi-universal factor embedded in the DNA.
• You will be judged on how well you treat those who can do nothing for you.
- I like this. I don’t know if you will be judged. I agree that people do not like people who seem to exclusively reach out because they want or “need” something from you. It’s like the boy who cried for too many favors.
• We tend to overestimate what we can do in a day, and underestimate what we can achieve in a decade. Miraculous things can be accomplished if you give it ten years. A long game will compound small gains to overcome even big mistakes.
- You can actually tend a ton done in a day. It’s all about planning and your personal strategies for effectively managing the parts of your day when you’re most able to do certain types of tasks. The decade issue is because humans have a really poor perception of time. This is partly, of course, because time is a construct. The pandemic has been a reminder that time doesn’t necessary move in a particularly linear fashion. That’s why the “news” isn’t always “breaking” and isn’t always news. The next iPhone comes out in linear time. The next election happens when it happens. But culture doesn’t work like this.
• Thank a teacher who changed your life.
- A nice thing to do.
• You cant reason someone out of a notion that they didn’t reason themselves into.
- Fair point. If someone has been deceived into their belief they are susceptible to additional cognitive biases. They don’t really know how they got where they got and this makes the whole situation a debacle.
• Your best job will be one that you were unqualified for because it stretches you. In fact only apply to jobs you are unqualified for.
- This is not true. One of those laws named after someone discusses how, especially in corporate culture, people are often give title bumps until they find themselves in a job that is above where they are most effective. The wise maneuver would be to increase their salary while keeping them in a job that they are far better at than the majority of others you might find to replace them in that position.
• Buy used books. They have the same words as the new ones. Also libraries.
- For sure.
• You can be whatever you want, so be the person who ends meetings early.
- That’s funny. Also, don’t force pointless meetings on helpless staffers.
• A wise man said, “Before you speak, let your words pass through three gates. At the first gate, ask yourself, “Is it true?” At the second gate ask, “Is it necessary?” At the third gate ask, “Is it kind?”
- I like this. As I get older, the importance of small acts of kindness have made themselves clear as part of what reveals humanity at its most beautiful.
• Take the stairs.
- True. Get those stairs in.
• What you actually pay for something is at least twice the listed price because of the energy, time, money needed to set it up, learn, maintain, repair, and dispose of at the end. Not all prices appear on labels. Actual costs are 2x listed prices.
- Considering the “price” vs. “cost” is always good to keep in mind.
• When you arrive at your room in a hotel, locate the emergency exits. It only takes a minute.
- Uh, what are you thinking might happen??
• The only productive way to answer “what should I do now?” is to first tackle the question of “who should I become?”
- This is a little Zen-y. Each step is directly you towards a new version of yourself. So, yeah, given enough choices, you are bending yourself one way vs. any number of other semi-infinite possibilities.
• Average returns sustained over an above-average period of time yield extraordinary results. Buy and hold.
- It’s true, invest $2000 in the S&P 500 today and decades later it’ll be some serious bank.
• It’s thrilling to be extremely polite to rude strangers.
- As my grandmother said, “Kill them with kindness.”
• It’s possible that a not-so smart person, who can communicate well, can do much better than a super smart person who can’t communicate well. That is good news because it is much easier to improve your communication skills than your intelligence.
- Communication matters a great deal. That’s why your English major was worth a couple bucks.
• Getting cheated occasionally is the small price for trusting the best of everyone, because when you trust the best in others, they generally treat you best.
- Better wisdom is to act as if. Present yourself as if you are wholeheartedly trusting. Secretly, you should be ready for the possibility that others may be out to deceive you or otherwise take advantage of you. This could be simple acts of dominating your time, your hospitality, your willingness to be a shoulder to cry on. It’s important not to let yourself be a doormat.
• Art is whatever you can get away with.
- This is not true.
• For the best results with your children, spend only half the money you think you should, but double the time with them.
- Something along these lines, yeah.
• Purchase the most recent tourist guidebook to your home town or region. You’ll learn a lot by playing the tourist once a year.
- This is pretty decent advice. Your backyard has a lot to offer.
• Dont wait in line to eat something famous. It is rarely worth the wait.
- This is almost always the case.
• To rapidly reveal the true character of a person you just met, move them onto an abysmally slow internet connection. Observe.
- Funny. Yeah, a lot of us are super impatient with technology. We like it when it works for us. Otherwise, we want to destroy it as soon as possible.
• Prescription for popular success: do something strange. Make a habit of your weird.
- Frankly, this is confusing.
• Be a pro. Back up your back up. Have at least one physical backup and one backup in the cloud. Have more than one of each. How much would you pay to retrieve all your data, photos, notes, if you lost them? Backups are cheap compared to regrets.
- Agreed.
• Dont believe everything you think you believe.
- Agreed. Question your firm beliefs regularly. Why so firm? Stay receptive.
• To signal an emergency, use the rule of three; 3 shouts, 3 horn blasts, or 3 whistles.
- I don’t know if this is universally known which makes it ineffective in an emergency situation.
• At a restaurant do you order what you know is great, or do you try something new? Do you make what you know will sell or try something new? Do you keep dating new folks or try to commit to someone you already met? The optimal balance for exploring new things vs exploiting them once found is: 1/3. Spend 1/3 of your time on exploring and 2/3 time on deepening. It is harder to devote time to exploring as you age because it seems unproductive, but aim for 1/3.
- This is person to person. Try new things, yes. Repetition yields meaning, yes.
• Actual great opportunities do not have “Great Opportunities” in the subject line.
- Places called “Bella Vista” are probably objectively hideous.
• When introduced to someone make eye contact and count to 4. You’ll both remember each other.
- They may also think you’re a lunatic but you do you.
• Take note if you find yourself wondering “Where is my good knife? Or, where is my good pen?” That means you have bad ones. Get rid of those.
- Partial truth. A couple backups are ok. Minimalism is for people who can afford to replace items without worrying about the money.
• When you are stuck, explain your problem to others. Often simply laying out a problem will present a solution. Make “explaining the problem” part of your troubleshooting process.
- This is like the concept of teaching others making you learn how to better understand your own take on the matter. You hone your ideas and make them more clear and understandable (even to you) as you prepare for sharing and educating others. If you act as if you are planning to use material for teaching others how to do something you will likely improve your ability to speak on that matter at hand.
• When buying a garden hose, an extension cord, or a ladder, get one substantially longer than you think you need. It’ll be the right size.
- That’s funny. Bigger isn’t always better but going short can make potentially useful items useless items that wind up just taking up space.
• Dont bother fighting the old; just build the new.
- Unfortunately, we can’t simply throw out The Constitution. This is an example, of course. There are some instances when you have to do the hard work of amending the old.
• Your group can achieve great things way beyond your means simply by showing people that they are appreciated.
- Showing appreciation is important. It makes people want to be a part of the team. It makes people feel valued. People who do not feel valued and validated are likely to seek these feelings from elsewhere.
• When someone tells you about the peak year of human history, the period of time when things were good before things went downhill, it will always be the years of when they were 10 years old — which is the peak of any human’s existence.
- Nope, it’s around the age of 14-17 when you were forming essential parts of your identity. The music you loved then will be the best music of all time. It’s indisputable.
• You are as big as the things that make you angry.
- Um, what? No, anger has it’s essential moments. Save them for when it makes a useful impact.
• When speaking to an audience it’s better to fix your gaze on a few people than to “spray” your gaze across the room. Your eyes telegraph to others whether you really believe what you are saying.
- Hmm, interesting.
• Habit is far more dependable than inspiration. Make progress by making habits. Dont focus on getting into shape. Focus on becoming the kind of person who never misses a workout.
- I don’t like this because it’s not leaving room for flexibility. Habits and routine need a certain amount of initial rigidity. You can get back to it though if you need to upend your habit/routine for valid reasons. Being inflexible can make you unfun and miserable. Don’t be that.
• When negotiating, dont aim for a bigger piece of the pie; aim to create a bigger pie.
- This sounds like saying that if you want to get more done, instead of making room on your plate, why not just make a bigger plate. It doesn’t work like that. You can’t just make a bigger plate.
• If you repeated what you did today 365 more times will you be where you want to be next year?
- It’s important not to get too bogged down in forever workshopping yourself into a better person. Humans are humans. We are not machines. We are not simply here to optimize ourselves.
• You see only 2% of another person, and they see only 2% of you. Attune yourselves to the hidden 98%.
- You can also put more cards on the table. Not everyone keeps their cards close. There’s a balance.
• Your time and space are limited. Remove, give away, throw out things in your life that dont spark joy any longer in order to make room for those that do.
- Remember, if you give yourself a certain amount of time to do a task you very often will manage to find ways to make the task take the entire amount of time. As the quote goes, time expands to fill the space. You can nudge yourself to not be a perfectionist. Being perfect isn’t usually worth it unless your job is making sure planes land safely and bridges do not collapse.
• Our descendants will achieve things that will amaze us, yet a portion of what they will create could have been made with today’s materials and tools if we had had the imagination. Think bigger.
- Sorta true. Thing is, it might be super easy for them. Think of how long it took to download a single MP3. It took wayyy too long. Now we have streaming music. What’s the lesson? Not entirely clear, right? But there’s an in-between. There are things that will be super easy to do in the future and are pretty damn near impossible right now. Maybe let’s deal with what we can effectively deal with now and worry about later later.
• For a great payoff be especially curious about the things you are not interested in.
- I agree that it’s good to determine the reasons why early. Don’t say “I like all music except rap and country.” What do you really mean? Examine. What do you say you “can’t understand poetry” or “don’t think fashion is interesting”—these are predictions and judgments. You think you’re supposed to feel certain ways but, more often than not, you haven’t done your homework and explained to yourself why you make broad claims.
• Focus on directions rather than destinations. Who knows their destiny? But maintain the right direction and you’ll arrive at where you want to go.
- What is this Dr. Seuss? Your time is limited. Keep that in mind. Also, when you’re 20, if you can make a bunch of money, don’t consider that a waste. Do it purposefully. Then, when you’re 30, and you know a little more about life, you’ll have a chunk of change and you can better determine what matters to you and those you care about.
• Every breakthrough is at first laughable and ridiculous. In fact if it did not start out laughable and ridiculous, it is not a breakthrough.
- I don’t think “laughable” and “ridiculous” have to be the keywords here. People are probably pulling a face though if it’s a real advance. A good salesperson knows how to sell people back to themselves. This essentially boils down to convincing a person they thought your idea was a good idea in the first place and they feel intelligent and slick for realizing this even though you just convinced them.
• If you loan someone $20 and you never see them again because they are avoiding paying you back, that makes it worth $20.
- True. Find out who your real friends are sooner rather than later. There are other methods for doing this and they are worth exploring.
• Copying others is a good way to start. Copying yourself is a disappointing way to end.
- Don’t be a pastiche of yourself. Find a new way to make yourself work harder and be more innovative.
• The best time to negotiate your salary for a new job is the moment AFTER they say they want you, and not before. Then it becomes a game of chicken for each side to name an amount first, but it is to your advantage to get them to give a number before you do.
- This sounds true. That being said, it seems like knowing your “worth” is important. If a job pays between X amount and Y amount, consider making them aware that you are aware X is the low end and Y is the high end. By doing so, you’re making it clear you know the parameters and you’re more likely to be met halfway at least.
• Rather than steering your life to avoid surprises, aim directly for them.
- Not everyone likes surprises. New experiences are good if they don’t cause vast amounts of anxiety and stress. Know yourself.
• Dont purchase extra insurance if you are renting a car with a credit card.
- Noted.
• If your opinions on one subject can be predicted from your opinions on another, you may be in the grip of an ideology. When you truly think for yourself your conclusions will not be predictable.
- What? Ok, maverick. I think surprising yourself is just fine occasionally. That being said, your beliefs, your morals and ethics, these things matter. These make the scope of possibilities within your ability to predict.
• Aim to die broke. Give to your beneficiaries before you die; it’s more fun and useful. Spend it all. Your last check should go to the funeral home and it should bounce.
- This is true. If you’re giving inheritance, definitely give it when people can use it. Think about when it will really make an impact. Think about the years, the decades, that can be improved. Invest in the person when it makes sense to invest in them. The relates to the problem with American ideas about retirement. Don’t retire to do nothing. Retire to do what you want to do anyway but without having to worry about the means.
• The chief prevention against getting old is to remain astonished.
- Agreed. “Astonished” is a fifty cent word here. I say all the time that staying curious, staying receptive—this is what keeps people young. Ask questions. Be interested. Don’t get rigid. Don’t get completely settled in your ways. Risk change.