When you make a business, you get to make a little universe where you control all the laws.

Go find very early versions of things: the first TV pilot of a later-successful TV show; early audition tapes by famous actors; early demos by famous musicians. Focus on these early examples, not what they became over the next 20 years. Remember that what you're doing will constantly improve.

The purpose of money is to trade for things that make you happy. So if you can bypass money and get directly to the happy, you've saved a lot of trouble. And it makes others happier, too, when you organize your business around non-monetary things.

Most people don't know what they're talking about. They move their mouth and say things because they don't want to admit they don't know. Or they think they know, but it's just confabulation and biases. So ignore them unless what they say resonates with some real wisdom inside of you. Assume they're a fool and find out the truth for yourself.

Care about your customers more than about yourself, and you'll do well.

Customer service is the new marketing.

For years, I'd say yes to almost everything, trying to be nice and generous. Feeling obliged to be of service to the world. Maybe also a fear of being forgotten if I don't. But I paid the ultimate price in doing that, because for all those years, I got almost no work done! Some famous authors have written about this: that if they said yes to every request, then they'd never have time to write another book again.