Friday Menagerie: Collection 22

The “Friday Menagerie” is a handful of links & tweets & other goodnesses from around the web that I gather throughout the week and then corral into a post. Stuff I loved, found fascinating, got a kick out of, etc. Please to enjoy!

Mama Said Link You Out

• Successful blogging is about great content, but it’s also about effectively using your time, respecting your audience, and not quitting if things don’t pan out in the first few weeks. Onibalusi Bamidele (who is all of sixteen years old, by the way) gives seven lessons from A-list bloggers that are good to know–or serve as a good refresher.
• Three things I like about Les McKeown’s Humor To Growth ratio: [a] Les acknowledges humor as a legitimate and helpful aspect of teamwork, [b] his description of one of the ineffective ends of the humor spectrum accurately describes many of my law school study sessions (“quickly deteriorates into a nerf-ball throwing jokefest”), and [c] the concept is as applicable to traditional corporate settings as it is to virtual teams (in other words, no matter where you work, you’ll be able to relate).
• Why yes, I am linking to one of Julien Smith’s articles again this week! (If he wouldn’t insist on writing such good shit so frequently, I wouldn’t keep including him. Fortunately for all of us, he does, so I do.) He describes 12 steps to quitting the job you hate, and while my departure from corporate life didn’t follow these exact steps, I certainly related to several of them a little too closely.
• Optimism gets a lot of emphasis and lip service and praise in the entrepreneurial spheres I frequent. Too much, in my opinion. I don’t advocate total Eeyore-ism, but I do think a dose of the perspective often labeled as “pessimsim” can be helpful to entrepreneurial endeavors. Scott Gerber’s article suggests I’m not totally off base.
• “The real path to happiness is contentment, and it looks a lot like hell,” Penelope Trunk declares in 5 reasons to stop trying to be happy. She says she wants “to find what is wrong, what is unsettling, what leads to inner turmoil and conflict.” To my surprise, that really landed with me. There is intrigue and fascination within the parts of life that don’t align, in the cracks that form in contentment. That’s where the whys and the wonder hows exist. She lets her mind wander “because the unhappy result is so interesting,” and I agree. I’m not sold on the idea that exploring those precludes happiness, but I found the notion she presents–interesting life versus happy life–thought-provoking.
• Tired of trying to be unceasingly, thoroughly unique and offbeat? Good. You don’t have to be. In fact, Seth Godin suggests cliches play a useful role: “You can’t be offbeat in all ways, because then we won’t understand you and we’ll reject you. Some of the elements you use should be perfectly aligned with what we’re used to.”
• Danielle LaPorte’s 5 essentials of making qualified requests is simply damn good. Two of those essentials, “Brevity is a form of respect, especially when you’re asking a busy person for help” and “Specificity is a call to action”, basically constitute the solutions to 75% of the email issues I see in inboxes.

Nuthin’ But A Tweet Thang

• I have never understood “be the envy of all your friends.” I want to experience awesome WITH my friends, not against them. @amyhoy
• Anything labeled “must-have” rarely is. @lesmckeown
• True leaders are not afraid to ask tough questions, especially when they know they may not like the answer. @LeadToday
• Corporate culture is what happens when your company is making other plans. @audaciousgloop, paraphrasing John Lennon
• It’s all about the fucking passion. @nikkijumper
• Being creative requires trust – taking intuition and putting it into action. @BaptisteYoga
• Hunters are better self-promoters than gatherers. You never see acorns, grubs and seeds mounted to someone’s wall, posing menacingly. @adamisacson

This Week’s Jukebox: Early 90s Rap For Which I Still Know All The Lyrics Edition

If you’re viewing this in a feed reader or email, you may need to click through to see the videos.

01. Mama Said Knock You Out by LL Cool J (1990)

02. Nuthin’ But A G Thang by Dr. Dre & Snoop Doggy Dogg (1993)
contains NSFW language

03. Shoop by Salt-N-Pepa (1994)

04. Ditty by Paperboy (1993)

05. Gin And Juice by Snoop Doggy Dogg (1994)
contains NSFW language

06. Regulate by Warren G. & Nate Dogg (1994)

07. Rumpshaker by Wreckx-N-Effect (1992)

Image credit: tanguero | CC License