Every month, I put together a list of 10 things to inspire you to do better work. This is The Awesome File.
Inside this month’s Awesome File: Advice! Struggle! Hurricane photo porn! That dude from ‘Inception’ covering Lady Gaga!
1. LEARN: From Jack Donaghy.
If you’re a ’30 Rock’ fan, you already know that Jack Donaghy’s one of the best characters on TV. But it turns out that he’s also offered up some pretty good business advice over the years. These lessons in business management are pretty excellent.
2. REMEMBER: ‘Note to My 25-Year-Old Self.’
And here’s some advice from the real world. It’s from Evonne Benedict, a journalist out in Seattle. She’s got 15 pieces of advice for herself at age 25. I think no. 14 — “Listen. Ordinary people have extraordinary stories if you take the time to listen to them.” — is especially fantastic.
3. READ: ‘The Struggle.
But even if you’ve got that advice in mind, you’ll need to remember something else: It won’t be easy to do great work. Ben Horowitz, an entrepreneur and VC, explains why in this really excellent post, “The Struggle.”
4. WATCH: Derrick Rose Returns.
If you do fight through the struggle, remember that you’re going to get something in return: Your very own comeback story. Here’s Derrick Rose’s, for his return to the Chicago Bulls. It’s pretty epic.
5. CONSIDER: The Sabbatical.
People who do the work — you, included — work damn hard. You hustle. You push. You create.
But oftentimes, you don’t spend enough time stepping back from the work to consider the present — and the future.
Here’s a post that got me thinking: “The Career Value Of A ‘Pointless’ Sabbatical.” It’s a really good example of how time off can be the restart button you need.
6. USE: This Awesome New Conference Call System.
And speaking of bad segues: Once you start working on that awesome new thing, you might have some other team members to work with. Consider using Speek for your conference calls. It’s awesome, it’s free and it’s ridiculously easy to use. It’s changed the way I think about conference calls.
7. STARE: These ‘Star Wars’ Posters.
I’m blown away by how gorgeous these “Star Wars” posters are. They’re by Olly Moss, and they’re just amazing. Why can’t the movies companies themselves make posters this amazing?
8. SCROLL: Through These Hurricane Sandy Photos.
I love a good Internet hack, and this one was really good: Instacane, a website for Instagram photos of Hurricane Sandy. Definitely worth a few minutes to scroll back through the storm that was.
9. WAIT, WHAT?: Dan Rather Brought Us The First Radar Image of a Hurricane.
This is pretty cool: Turns out that it’s Dan Rather who brought the first ever radar image of a hurricane to TV viewers, way back in 1961. It was one of his big breaks as a TV reporter.
10. !!!: Joseph Gordon-Levitt Sings ‘Bad Romance’
Nothing more to say about this. Rock out, and make some awesome happen this month.
That photo at top comes via here.