It’s not the fear of writing that blocks people, it’s fear of not writing well; something quite different.

When I'm the speaker, I know that special moment [just before speaking] is the only time I will have the entire audience's full attention. Unless an alien spaceship crash-lands on stage midway through the talk, the silence before I begin is the most powerful moment I have. What defines how well I'll do starts with how I use the power of that moment.

It’s not the fear of writing that blocks people, it’s fear of not writing well; something quite different.

All great tasks test our motivation. It's easy to court ideas over beers and change the world with napkin sketches, but like most things taken home from bars, new challenges arise the next day. It's in the morning light when work begins, and grand ideas (or barroom conquests) lose their luster. To do interesting things requires work and it's no surprise we abandon demanding passions for simpler, easier, more predictable things.

Innovative ideas are rarely rejected on their merits; they’re rejected because of how they make people feel. If you forget people’s concerns and feelings when you present an innovation, or neglect to understand their perspectives in your design, you’re setting yourself up to fail.

History can't give attention to what's been lost, hidden, or deliberately buried; it is mostly a telling of success, not the partial failures that enabled success.

I don’t want to be perfect. I want to be useful, I want to be good, and I want to sound like myself. Trying to be perfect gets in the way of all three.