When I was 17, I wrecked my girlfriend’s car. We were driving around aimlessly, because that’s all I could really afford to do. We took her Durango, because it was nicer than my car, but she liked me to drive, so I drove. Right into a pole. In my defense, the pole was basically asking to be driven into. It was a short metal pipe, painted black (incidentally, the same color as the parking lot), and it sat low enough that you could easily miss it if you were in a car that sat a little higher...
21 days ago • 3 min read
There’s a common piece of advice that says “Never meet your heroes, because they’re sure to disappoint you.” Personally, I couldn’t disagree more. Over the years, I’ve gotten to meet a lot of my heroes: bestselling authors, prolific creators, and all sorts of other cool people who are putting incredible work into the world. Almost without fail, these people have turned out to be even cooler in real life than I’d built them up to be in my head. But they’ve also disappointed me, and that's been...
28 days ago • 2 min read
Is it just me, or is time going faster lately? This week my daughter had high school orientation. My youngest two are finishing their last week of summer camp. Lowe’s and Costco already have Halloween decor for sale. In a few weeks school will start, and then I’ll blink and it’ll be Christmas. Then I’ll blink and it will be summer again. I’m obviously not the first person to notice this. All my life I’ve heard people say, “It all went by so fast.” But despite this, it’s somehow still...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
Several years ago I was talking to an acquiring editor at HarperCollins. I was asking him about the particulars of his job, and he shared something in a moment of honesty: “Kyle, my job is to buy lottery tickets. Every book I acquire is a lottery ticket. I know most of them won’t be winners, but if the winners offset the losers, I get to keep my job.” To be clear, he wasn’t saying that he just acquires books at random and hopes for the best. On the contrary, he told me he works very hard to...
about 1 month ago • 1 min read
This past weekend, I flew to San Francisco for an event called OpenSauce. OpenSauce is hard to describe... it’s sort of a weirdo Maker science fair combined with a family reunion for creators. There are some of the biggest makers on Youtube (people like Colin Furze and Ali Spagnola and Mark Rober and Matty from Unnecessary Inventions), but there are also tons of hobbyists who bring their cool projects to show. One guy made a robot based on the main character from Ratatouille (the human one,...
about 2 months ago • 1 min read
Yesterday morning I went to the doctor for my annual physical. My doctor checked my blood pressure and pulse oxygenation, listened to my heart, and hit my knees with that little rubber hammer (I’m 90% sure this has no medical purpose aside from the doctor’s sadistic enjoyment, but I digress). When I left, I called my wife to see how her morning was going, and we had a conversation we’ve been having for almost 18 years now. Every time I go to the doctor, she asks “What did the doctor say?”And...
about 2 months ago • 2 min read
A few weeks ago, I downloaded a new audiobook on a whim. I had an Audible credit burning a hole in my pocket, so I took a swing on a book I knew almost nothing about. The book is called Theo of Golden, and it’s a novel about an old man who ends up transforming a small town through acts of generosity and connection. It was a fantastic book, and I highly recommend it. But that’s not why I’m writing about it. At the end of the audiobook there was a bonus clip from the author talking about how...
2 months ago • 2 min read
Awhile back I heard another creator use a phrase I’d never heard before. Someone asked him whether a project he’d been working on was fun, and he said “Ehh… it’s Type 2 Fun.” I wasn’t familiar with the term, so I did some Googling. It turns out, not all fun is created equal. In fact, there are three types of fun: Type 1 Fun is enjoyable in the moment, and it’s also enjoyable in retrospect. Think hanging out with your friends, taking a peaceful stroll through a park, or playing your favorite...
3 months ago • 2 min read
There is a quote that is often attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt that says: “Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people.” I’ve noticed something similar when it comes to creators and tools. Small-minded creators talk about new tools as all-or-nothing. Average creators ignore new tools until it’s too late. Great creators focus on the possibilities that new tools unlock. I’m old enough to have seen this play out several different times in my life. Whether...
3 months ago • 2 min read