Competition
If you cannot win, make the one ahead of you break the record.
— Jan McKeithen
There is in American society a mad rush to distinguish oneself, and, as soon as something has been accepted as distinguishing, to package it in such a way that everyone can feel included.
— Alan Bloom, Closing of the American Mind
We don’t have one big advantage so we have to weave a rope of many small advantages.
— Jeff Bezos
My life is spent in one long effort to escape the commonplaces of existence.
— Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, spoken by Sherlock Holmes in The Red-Headed League
Ditto.
Choose the experiences in life that offer the most anecdotal value — that is, look for the opportunities that have the most likelihood of producing a cool story.
At the The Moth Chicago Grand Slam this year Peter Sagal (yes, that Peter Sagal) relayed these words of wisdom, passed on to him by a theater professor at Lewis and Clark College many years before.
With a tip of the hat to The Moth, make it a story-worthy life.
It is only the poor who are forbidden to beg.