My public notebook on remarkable people and thought-provoking ideas. Targeting 1,000 posts by end of 2025.
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In his mid-twenties, Beethoven realized he was losing his hearing at the apex of his career as a performing pianist. For three years, he concealed his condition by pretending to be forgetful or preoccupied when others spoke to him when, in fact, he could no longer hear. “Ah, how could I possibly admit such an infirmity in […]
4.8.2024 17:37#163 | Beethoven and his hearing lossIn high school, a young man named Phil discovered an art form called pointillism. He plotted thousands of dots in a pattern so that when viewed from afar, the dots looked like an identifiable image, like a person’s face. But years later, when Phil attended art school, a shake began to develop in his hand. […]
28.4.2024 16:10#162 | Embrace the ShakeToni did not think about being a writer as a kid. “I wanted to be a reader,” she said. “I thought everything that needed to be written had already been written or would be.” Born to a family of highly talented musicians in Lorain, Ohio, in 1931, Toni was originally named Chloe Ardelia Wofford. She received a […]
25.4.2024 16:02#161 | Toni Morrison(image here) Andrea was born partially blind with glaucoma in a Tuscan village in 1958. Throughout his childhood, his parents searched widely for a cure. On a restless night in a hospital, his mother Edi noticed Andrea calm as he pressed his ear to the wall, listening to classical music on an old phonograph playing […]
1.4.2024 00:15#160 | Andrea BocelliSnippets of a passage I came across on the meaning of work: A great deal of our lives is spent at work. Work is more than earning a living. It is a means of developing our human faculties. Sometimes work also entails some suffering, and to this extent it is for us a participation in […]
19.2.2024 22:05#159 | Work(image source) From Australian singer-songwrtier Sia Kate Isobelle Furler‘s Courage to change: World, I want to leave you betterI want my life to matterI am afraid I have no purpose hereI watch the news on TVAbandon myself dailyI am afraid to let you see the real me Rain it falls, rain it fallsPouring on meAnd […]
19.2.2024 18:32#158 | Courage to Change(image source: Beatriz Velasco/Getty Images) “We seem to have evolved into a society of mourned and misplaced creativity.” the British-Spanish concert pianist James Rhodes once said. “A world where people have simply surrendered to (or been beaten into submission by) the sleepwalk of work, domesticity, mortgage repayments, junk food, junk TV, junk everything, angry ex-wives, […]
19.2.2024 02:07#157 | James Rhodes: ‘Find what you love and let it kill you’Writer Maria Popova, who runs a long-form blog at The Marginalian, says she filters the content included in her essays through a few questions: 1. Does it leave the reader with a thought, idea, or a question after reading? Is it meaningful? 2. Is the work evergreen? Will it still be interesting in a year? […]
12.2.2024 15:14#156 | Curation of meaningful, evergreen ideasWhile reading the biography of Florence Nightingale by Catherine Reef this week, one small anecdote struck me. Florence once visited a church in Rome. As the faithful received blessings from the priest, she saw a small girl in the crowd asking for handouts on the streets. Florence returned to her lodging, but the child remained on her […]
5.2.2024 16:05#155 | It made a difference to that one(image source) One of my favorite modern pianists and composers is Dustin O’Halloran (I’ve been looping Opus 28 in the last few weeks). An interviewer once asked O’Halloran how he structured his day for creative work. He said he didn’t have much of a schedule in his early days and often worked at night. But […]
4.2.2024 17:21#154 | The early morning magic(image source) Long before becoming an established science fiction writer, Octavia Estelle Butler took on many temp jobs after graduating high school: clerical, laundry, food prep, manufacturing, warehouse logistics—she has done it all. Like Toni Morrison, Butler would wake up early before dawn to write. As biographer Lynell George wrote in “Handful of Earth, a Handful of Sky: […]
3.2.2024 18:02#153 | Octavia Butler, Use What You HaveInuksuk The Inuit people in the Arctic region of North America have a tradition of piling stones to form a landmark called an Inuksuk. These markers indicate significant travel routes, fishing places, and camps. Today, the territory of Nunavut in northern Canada still uses an image of Inuksuk as the centerpiece of its flag. In […]
2.2.2024 16:32#152 | Shades for people we don’t knowSinger-songwriter Ed Sheeran once shared his advice for young performers: “There’s 7 billion people in this world and there is no one like you. No one will write like you. No one will sing like you. As long as you keep it exactly yourself. Imitating people to a point helps you write songs and sing. But once you’ve […]
15.1.2024 18:15#151 | There’s 7 billion people. And there’s you.When working on a story, Ernest Hemingway would wake up at six in the morning and write for a few hours. Then, he would review what he had written and stop before exerting himself. “You write until you come to a place where you still have your juice and know what will happen next and […]
14.1.2024 16:47#150 | Hemingway Bridge and Mozart’s departure points(note card: #40a) In his book The Medici Effect, Swedish-American author Frans Johansson argues quantity is foundational to the quality of any serious creative pursuit. Only a fraction of a creator’s work will be great, so the best way to beat the odds and achieve breakthroughs is to continually produce. “Groundbreaking innovators produce a heap […]
13.1.2024 18:50#149 | Quantity precedes qualityEnglish singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran shares his song-writing process: “I try to write as much as possible. If I’m in album making mode, it’ll be four or five songs a day. There’ll be no thought process. It’s just a guitar and write a song. Twelve out of a hundred might be good. I write a bunch […]
13.1.2024 18:19#148 | Write a bunch, scrap a bunchLong before he became the 20th President of the United States, James Garfield didn’t look like he was on a path to becoming an educated man. The cards were stacked against him from early on: his family was poor, and he was fatherless. While Garfield loved reading and learning, he thought it was more likely for him […]
10.1.2024 16:28#147 | Janitorial work for tuition(image from here) After various odd jobs for over a decade, Steven Pressfield got his professional writing job for a movie called King Kong Lives. He and his partner were confident the movie would be a hit when they finished. They invited everyone they knew to the premiere and rented next door for overflow in […]
9.1.2024 16:29#146 | The pro without success yetDutch psychologist, priest, and professor Henri Nouwen wrote about writing in his book Seeds of Hope: Writing is a process in which we discover what lives in us. The writing itself reveals to us what is alive in us. The deepest satisfaction of writing is precisely that it opens up new spaces within us of […]
8.1.2024 15:39#145 | A journey whose final destination we do not know(Da Vinci’s helicopter drawing from here) In his early years, Leonardo Da Vinci apprenticed under Florentine artist Andrea Del Verrochio, who taught him drawing, engineering, and science. Da Vinci absorbed the subjects like a sponge, and soon, he became increasingly eager to invent and make the work his own beyond Verrochio’s instructions. Verrochio once asked Da Vinci […]
7.1.2024 16:40#144 | Ideas flow when we make the work our own(image from here) Lauren Martin wrote in The Book of Moods: Writing a book, I quickly found out, was a crash course in anxiety. Years of being locked in a room with nothing but my thoughts, my future, my past in front of me. At the start of the dream, I hadn’t thought about the […]
6.1.2024 18:44#143 | One word at a timeIn reply to <a href="https://1000leaps.com/2023/12/15/139-poco-a-poco/comment-page-1/#comment-31">Kate</a>. Of course, Kate, thank for reading!
3.1.2024 16:08Comment on #139 | Poco a poco by Jimmy Chim(image from here) Long before he became a storyteller and novelist, Matthew Dicks worked in McDonald’s to make ends meet after he left home for college. Seven McDonald’s over 13 years, to be precise. “The days felt endless,” Dicks said. “It was the same routine over and over again. Taking orders, flipping burgers, and handing out fries. […]
3.1.2024 16:07#142 | BBQ Sauce DayIn a commencement speech in 1999, writer Anna Quindlen argues the most challenging work in life is to give up on being perfect and begin the work of becoming yourself. The work is difficult because there’s no zeitgeist to read, no template to follow, and no masks to hide behind. “This is the hard work […]
2.1.2024 16:18#141 | The symphony within usGiven merely five minutes, Australian memory athlete Daniel Kilov can recall a shuffled deck of cards, a string of one hundred random digits, or 100 abstract shapes. While he uses multiple visualization and mental organization techniques, attention control is the foundation of his cognitive ability. He said in his TED Talk: Most failures of memory […]
26.12.2023 18:02#140 | Life is a sum of what we focus onThanks for sharing this!
16.12.2023 17:09Comment on #139 | Poco a poco by KateOver the last few months, I’ve been swimming on average twice a week, sometimes on Sundays, but mainly during the week after work. It surprises me that visiting the pool has become a routine. If you had asked whether I enjoyed swimming in 2005, my reaction would have been bitter. At the time, like most […]
15.12.2023 15:30#139 | Poco a pocoIn a New Yorker piece, Japanese Haruki Murakami divulged his routine as a novelist. He reserves the early morning to focus, runs errands in the afternoon, and retires early at night. This pattern often requires him to turn down invitations to concentrate on his work. It doesn’t allow much nightlife and creates occasional challenges for relationships with his […]
12.12.2023 17:08#138 | Global or local?Once, while waiting at a dentist’s office, American Rabbi Dr. Abraham Twerski accidentally discovered a fascinating lesson on discomfort when he read a curious article titled, “How do lobsters grow?”. “It points out that a lobster is a soft, mushy animal that lives inside of a rigid shell. That rigid shell does not expand well.” he said. […]
10.12.2023 15:50#137 | How lobsters grow(image from here) As Pixar became a graphics technology leader in the mid-1990s, an Intel engineer once asked Steve Jobs for advice on how Intel, the chip maker, could improve its graphics performance. Jobs replied to the engineer and Intel CEO Andy Grove that Pixar could help, but it had taken Pixar over ten years […]
5.12.2023 16:54#136 | Steve Jobs: “I have changed my position 180 degrees.”(photo from here) Mark Twain once wrote to the deaf and blind author Helen Keller when she was accused of plagiarism at age 12. He reassured Keller not to worry and ignore the “owlishly idiotic and grotesque plagiarism farce.” Twain writes: For substantially all ideas are secondhand, consciously and unconsciously drawn from a million outside […]
3.12.2023 16:53#135 | All ideas are secondhandIn her TED Talk titled 12 Things I Learned from Life and Writing, Anne Lamott shared the story of her older brother struggling with writing a term paper in fourth grade. The assignment was due the next day, but he hadn’t started yet. As the deadline loomed, he felt stuck and broke down from anxiety. […]
28.11.2023 16:11#134 | Start with the first bird(image from here) In his book Awareness, Jesuit thinker Anthony De Mello explored the distinction between faith and belief: “Faith is an openness to the truth, no matter where it leads you and when you don’t even know where it’s going to lead you. That’s faith. Not belief, but faith. Your beliefs give you a […]
27.11.2023 16:30#133 | Faith, not beliefIn his book Your Music and and People, Derek Sivers advises making it clear who you are not serving: “Loudly reject 99%. It signals who you are. When someone in your target 1% hears you proudly excluding the rest, they’ll be drawn to you.”
23.11.2023 11:06#132 | Loudly reject 99%(image from here) This week, I reread The Creative Act by Rick Rubin and was struck by this line: “The ability to look deeply is the root of creativity. To see past the ordinary and mundane and get to what might otherwise be invisible.” This reminds me of what Marcel Proust once said: “The real […]
22.11.2023 11:50#131 | What you see(photo source) Seth Godin writes in Linchpin: No one is a genius all the time. Einstein had trouble finding his house when he walked home from work every day. But all of us are geniuses sometimes.
21.11.2023 11:09#130 | Genius sometimesDerek Sivers wrote in How to Live: Your focus will almost certainly lead to success. When you live, dream, and work with one single mission, you will achieve that mission. Winifred Gallagher wrote in Rapt: Your life—who you are, what you think, feel, and do, what you love—is the sum of what you focus on. […]
20.11.2023 12:04#129 | FocusAuthor William Zinsser wrote in On Writing Well: I often find myself reading with interest about a topic I never thought would interest me — some scientific quest, perhaps. What holds me is the enthusiasm of the writer for his field… Ultimately, the product any writer has to sell is not the subject being written […]
19.11.2023 11:41#128 | What writers sell(Image: Hulton Archive/Getty Images) I re-read a few thought-provoking quotes I saw (and took pictures of) during my visit to the Charles Schulz Museum a few weeks ago. Here they are: A cartoonist is someone who draws the same thing day after day without repeating himself. It seems beyond comprehension of people that someone can […]
18.11.2023 16:39#127 | The same thing without repeatingA few years ago, I visited a smog check station near my house. The owner, Jose, took twenty minutes and said the car had passed the test. When I paid and thought that was the end of a routine exchange, Jose started scribbling on the back of the receipt. He said I should watch out […]
17.11.2023 16:30#126 | Car mechanicsIn her book The Light We Carry, Michelle Obama wrote about her dad’s multiple sclerosis. MS is a lifelong condition affecting the brain and spinal cord. It often causes many potential symptoms, including problems with vision, arm or leg movement, sensation, or balance. When one tool stopped working for Michelle’s dad, the family had to go […]
16.11.2023 15:09#125 | Michelle Obama: What tools are forAmerican psychologist BJ Skinner once delivered a speech titled “How to Discover What You Have to Say.” He referenced the 19th-century French writer Marie-Henri Beyle, known by his pen name Stendhal. Stendhal once remarked, “If when I was young I had been willing to talk about wanting to be a writer, some sensible person might […]
15.11.2023 15:55#124 | Stendal: Don’t wait to become a genius(image and story from “In a second, my life changed.”) This week, I read an essay titled, “In a second, my life changed.” George Turner wrote about his accident on his 5-minute bike ride home. He lost consciousness for four weeks and was in the hospital for months. His skull swelled after the accident and […]
14.11.2023 16:25#123 | Will you be a driver or a passenger?Author William Zinsser wrote in On Writing Well: Good writing doesn’t come naturally, though most people seem to think it does. Professional writers are constantly bearded by people who say they’d like to “try a little writing sometime”—meaning when they retire from their real profession, like insurance or real estate, which is hard. Or they […]
14.11.2023 00:15#122 | Good writing doesn’t come naturallyWriter Annie Dillard wrote in The Writing Life: “One of the few things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book, or for another book; give it, give it all, […]
12.11.2023 16:10#121 | Give it now, spend it all(Picture from We are verbs, not nouns) Writer William Faulkner wrote: Don’t be ‘a writer’. Be writing. Writer-creator Austin Kleon said: Forget the noun. Do the verb. English actor Stephen Fry said: Oscar Wilde said that if you know what you want to be, then you inevitably become it – that is your punishment, but […]
11.11.2023 16:44#120 | Be a verbI finished the book Night by Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel this week. The memoir was a poignant account of his experience during the Nazi occupation in the 1940s. Like most Holocaust survivors, Wiesel faced extreme hunger, sickness, and cruelty. He saw his dad beaten and starved to death. The most profound impression I had from […]
10.11.2023 16:45#119 | NightJesuit priest Anthony de Mello once wrote: You must cultivate activities that you love. You must discover work that you do, not for its utility, but for itself, whether it succeeds or not, whether you are praised for it or not, whether you are loved and rewarded for it or not, whether people know about […]
9.11.2023 16:40#118 | What grips your soulWhile reading Adam Alter’s book Anatomy of a Breakthrough, I came across a line by French ultramarathon runner Guillaume Calmettes: “[When there’s no finish line,] you’re never overwhelmed by what you have left to run because you simply don’t know what you have left to run.” In his case, ultramarathons can be 50 or 100 […]
8.11.2023 16:26#117 | When there is no finish lineAuthor Robert Greene once shared his peculiar journaling method when a fan asked how he approaches research before writing. He is known to jot down ideas on index cards and organize them in shoe boxes while studying. His journaling habit is the secret behind many of his books. He once shared: “I read a book, […]
7.11.2023 18:06#116 | How Robert Greene readsIn her book The Artist’s Way, writer Julia Cameron proposes a practice called The Artist Dates. The idea is to set time aside once a week to explore something interesting, like visiting a museum, shopping at a farmer’s market, or hiking a new trail. The Artist Date needs not to be overtly “artistic”—think mischief more than mastery. It […]
6.11.2023 15:09#115 | Artist DatesRomanian Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel wrote in his book Night recalling a moment he experienced in Auschwitz: Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, that turned my life into one long night seven times sealed.Never shall I forget that smoke.Never shall I forget the small faces of the children whose bodies […]
5.11.2023 17:20#114 | Never shall I forget[…] sure how to begin, start with what you know for sure. As crossword puzzle creator Will Shortz once put it, “Begin with the answers you’re surest of and build from […]
22.7.2023 16:24Comment on #19 | Start With What You Know by #16 | Start with One True Sentence – 1,000 Leaps