Tag Archives: Gapingvoid

Hugh MacLeod – I Found Joy

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“Sometimes being happy is just a choice. It’s just what you look for every day. In your work, in love, in friendships.

It’s really about how you view your place on earth. You look for joy, and that’s what you’ll find.

We all know people who make the ‘other’ choice. Nothing is good enough. They find fault everywhere. Their default mode is discontent.

For a lucky few, they eventually reach the abyss. The point at which being confronted with the dire-ness which is their life, becomes transformative.

Instead they choose joy.

Everything becomes better.

It takes nothing more than changing an attitude.

Today, take the hand of someone who you think should choose differently.”

Hugh MacLeod – I Cannot

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This is really about leadership. Leaders understand, often innately, what it takes to inspire action.

Inspired action is a much different animal than top down directed action.

Inspired people will walk through fire to achieve their goal. Directed people are in it for the paycheck.

It was the difference between the Roman legions and mercenary adversaries.

It is why so many businesses these days are focussed on finding their true purpose, and why we spend a lot of our time helping companies communicate that purpose.

Purpose allows for inspired action with amazing results.

Hugh MacLeod – Create Collaborate

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You have your individual creative moments, and you have your creative collaboration moments.

They feed on each other. Even cartooning, as in my case, it’s a fairly lonely craft, however it too relies on the feedback loop I get from the people who help me run gapingvoid- Jason and Laura, namely.

It’s something that gets clearer to me as I get older- that all good things feed on other good things, and feed them back.

It’s the wheel of life, it’s the wheel of being. This reality will never change… and Thank Goodness for that

Hugh MacLeod – Begin or End

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There are few things sadder than seeing someone give up. And by the same token, seeing someone walk through life waiting to wake up. These people want something out of life, but they can’t put their finger on it, and so they wait. They wait for something to simply fall out of the sky and many times (if not always) their wait is in vain.

I don’t want to get into a discussion about fate or whatever that would imply for a person in this situation, but sometimes one has to decide to live. Not for someone or something else–but solely for their own happiness and contentment.
It can be hard, sometimes, to get out of this mindset, that things will just happen or work themselves out on their own. We have infinite potential to change our impact on the world and with the people around us.

All one has to do is act.

Hugh MacLeod — Infinite Market

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This is a revisit to a previous cartoon which inspired Seth Godin to write a book…

My friend Seth Godin said it perfectly, “What do marketers sell that scales? I’ll tell you what: Belief. Belonging. Mattering. Making a difference. Tribes. We have an unlimited need for this.”

[Read and remember this link]

Hugh MacLeod — In Memoriam of Steve Jobs

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I remember when the first time I saw the TV ad, back when it first came out.

It changed my life.

It was the first commercial I’d ever seen in my life, that actually spoke to me, my true self, and not just to, like pretty much EVERY SINGLE OTHER COMMERCIAL out there, whatever short-term, trivial needs I had going on that day.

It was then I knew that I wasn’t just one of the crazy ones, but that it was also IMPERATIVE to actually be one of the crazy ones. That my life and soul demanded it.

It’s not what Steve Jobs created in his his brief but incandescent life- the computers, iPods, iPhones etc etc- that isn’t the big story.

And what we created with his his products, that isn’t the big story, either.

The big story is what Steve helped us believe about ourselves. By putting his balls on the line, again and again, he made it easier for us to do the same.

And so we did.

Thank you, Steve. You will be missed. Of course you frickin’ will…

[YouTubeUlar] <— 1,622,043

Hugh MacLeod – Not Everybody’s Red

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“At a point in life – some people come to the realization that they march to the beat of their own drum. Normal doesn’t quite describe these folks who often try desperately to fit in, but like the little red man in today’s cartoon, fail miserably.

There comes a time when we are forced to embrace the self-realization that breaking away from normal is actually a good thing.

Success is not defined by how well we fit in with “the crowd”, but actually how we inspire those around us. I like to think this cartoon sends that message to recruiters: “Ok, so you don’t do “Normal”…we get that. And we’re glad.”

Hugh MacLeod – Transform

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“I visualized this cartoon as a poster to hang on the wall.

Though most of my friends are happy enough with their lot in life, it’s funny how there’s invariably some element of it that they years to transform entirely. Their job, their financial situation, their love life, whatever.

This need to UTTERLY transform oneself, I don’t think it’s vanity or the delusion of youth. I think it’s a fundamental human drive. It’s what got us out of our caveman lifestyles and got us launching rockets to the moon and painting Sistine Chapels.

You know that itch you cannot scratch? Michelangelo and Neil Armstrong had one too. So you’re in good company. Exactly.”

Hugh MacLeod – More To Life

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To paraphrase Seneca, the tragedy isn’t that life is short, the tragedy is that we waste so much of it.

The other types of tragedy, the more violent kind, never worry me too much, thankfully. I never lost much sleep, worrying about wars or serial killers or whatever.

But getting to the end of my life and realizing that I had wasted most of it, that idea froze my blood.

As it should…

TOTD – 200 MPH

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“The coffee mug is full, it’s 10:30 pm, but it feels like 10:30 am. You are experiencing the rush of being “in flow”.

You’re furiously typing your ‘big idea’, and you know the hair-brained scheme you just dreamt up is going to be a winner. A big winner.

You’re at 200 MPH, and you just know you can push the needle further.

You do.”

I’m doing this right now…  only still adventuring at the same time. Look for a Kickstarter Blackbox release tomorrow.  Thanks for defining how my brain works Hugh MacLeod.