Here's what you should say [to an investor]: 'this is what my company does' It's that simple. What you're trying to do is get potential investors to fantasize about how your product or service will make a boatload of money. They can't fantasize if they don't know what you do.

If you have to put someone on a pedestal, put teachers. They are society's heroes.

Writing is one way to achieve enchantment.

Smart, well-meaning people get it wrong when they start believing that the world owes them something and that the rules are different for them.

Enchantment can be done with writing but I think enchantment is basically a prospective or an operating system for life. That you can enchant a person who is assigning your airplane seat, your hotel room, your waiter, your waitress.

Money is not the sole or most powerful motivation for many people. A higher and tougher test is to look back and see how you've made the world a better place.

You say: "I'm a blue sky thinker." Investor thinks: "You have no business model, and you don't know how to ship."