1000m Row
50 thrusters @45lbs
30 pull ups
1 vomit all over your shirt

My time: 8:23

*Sub-10 is good, sub-8 is better. Totally hit my chin and bit my tongue on the thrusters. (Note to self: Don’t wack face with a metal bar. (Pause.))

My Time: 10:35

MY TIME: 35-ish minutes

I do understand that it’s important for your site to be linked from other sites, but I’d rather see my content on a single blog post rather than on the site’s blogroll.

Why?

Because it means that I’ve done something signficant enough that I deserve commentary.  It means that I’ve gotten enough steam behind an idea to keep other people thinking about it.

When I’m on your blogroll under a site that gets 10mm hits a year, I’m literally buried underneath the weight of traffic going to that site and not mine. It does not say anything about why you should go to my site instead.  In fact, if I weren’t me, I wouldn’t go to my site either if it came down to me or Seth Godin’s page.

And what’s it mean to you to be in my blogroll if I’m not getting paid to put you there?  Are Larry and Sergey going to thank me for putting Google in my brianfeener.com blogroll? Probably not (though they seem like pretty grateful individuals).

I’d rather be successful for the fact that I do a good job than be successful on the basis of association.  Those are the movies that tout the “writers of hit comedy X” and the rap albums that have all the “Featuring Lil’ ____” after the song titles.  Maybe it’s a way to build a business, but it’s not a way to build a career.

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There’s a certain ludicrousness to bullet-points. People don’t think or talk like that.

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We can tell when you’re not comfortable in writing or design.

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It’s easy to tell when you’re not having fun.

I don’t know how worried I should be about the market crisis.  I’ve been purposely kept in the dark by my 401k company.  I have motivation to wonder but dont know how to take action.  Who’s fault is that?  Is there no pain because I have no idea how much $ i lost?

Listening to the song performed live, I was excited for the album version without the crowd noise and with a little more “polished” feel to it.

That night I was disappointed when the version released sounded like this:

*Notice the extra Auto-Tune, extra reverb, and muffled hook.  All-in-all, just sounds like an unfinished song.

Then this morning I check my RSS feeds and, lo-and-behold, Kanye’s fixed the issues and made a hit.

*Notice that it doesn’t sound like trash.

Sometimes, something you produce will be wrong.  Or have a problem.  Or just not be the way you want it now that you’re using it everyday.  It’s ok to fix it. Sulking is actually exacerbating the problem because you’re losing the time you could be using to fix stuff.

Be more like Kanye.  Stop sulking.  Just fix it.

It makes sense when you think that there were millions of dollars invested in finding the formula that the MOST people will like.  Finding the perfect texture that millions of people would pay $1 for.

How about this graph:

Y-axis = % of the population
X-axis = Texture, Flavor
Red area = McDonald’s hot fudge fan
Green area = Not McDonald’s hot fudge fan

Here’s the interesting part… you can make a ton of money working to get into that middle.  Keep in mind that you’re always going to be McDonald’s wheelhouse and they are going to do everything they can to outmarket your product.  But what about those fans that McDonald’s isn’t appealing to?  How much are those fans going to pay for their exclusive hot sauce?

There are plenty of reasons to try to hit that middle sweet spot, but there are plenty of chances to be the best in the world at somewhere else.

Today I’m listening to Cipha Sounds and Peter Rosenberg’s podcast “Juan Epstein” and the interview with Nelly.  They breifly discussed the evolutionary aspect of hip-hip that brought it from Sugarhill Gang to A Tribe Called Quest to Wu-Tang Clan and to Soulja Boy.  They’re all in the same genre but with entirely different styles.  They made the point that it’s not right to be unfair different styles of work just because they may not ascripe to your particular aesthetic. Don’t hate on something simply because it’s not what you think Should Be.

Not everyone is going to like what you do, but as long as you are doing what you do well, it’s all ok.  Just be true to what you believe and success will come.  There is a market for everything and it’s about developing that market by delivering what they want to do.

Everyone has a favorite flavor. Just because others don’t like it, doesn’t mean it doesn’t belong somewhere.