Jared Dees's Blog: The Latest from Jared Dees, page 47

The Office, Twelve Years Later

My wife and I watched the pilot episode of The Office the other day.

It was funny . . . really funny.

I remember watching the pilot in 2005 when it first aired.

I didn’t laugh.

It wasn’t funny to me.

I didn’t get it . . . yet.

That first episode had all the elements that made the show great, but it was so different from everything else on TV at the time.

Sure, there were mockumentaries before The Office. It wasn’t a new genre, but it hadn’t been done quite like this before in the U.S.

NBC and...

How Black Friday Spreads

Want to mobilize a large group of people to take action all at the same time?

Pick a day and name it.

Be specific about the task.

Repeat the day and it becomes a tradition.

Today is Black Friday, the biggest shopping day of the year. “The Day After Thanksgiving” was always a popular shopping day. Then, the day got a name and the name made it easier to talk about.

Year after year the name became more and more popular–easier to spread by word of mouth.

Here is the history of searches for “black...

Lincoln’s Thanksgiving Proclamation

Happy Thanksgiving!

Here are two things I learned about this holiday a few years ago:

It began during the American Civil War (not Plymouth Rock). It was initiated not as a day to give thanks, but as a day to give thanks to God.

Take a few minutes today to read President Abraham Lincoln’s original Thanksgiving Proclamation. I hope it restores meaning to this holiday as it has for me.

Washington, D.C.
October 3, 1863

By the President of the United States of America.

A Proclamation.

The year...

Write Every Day

Well, with some exceptions, I try to write every day, and it’s easier that way . . . And I try to stop—to end the day, knowing where I am going to pick up. So when I come back to sit down at my desk again, I don’t think, “Oh, now, what the devil do I do next?”

David McCullough
Goodreads Interview, May 2015

I think of this quote often when writing a book.

David McCullough is the author of so many great biographies and history books including John Adams, 1776, The Wright Brothers, Truman, and T...

The Connect and Redirect Technique

When children are upset and unable to think logically, our response is often getting upset and frustrated, too. During these moments, children are thinking exclusively with their emotional right brains. Overwhelmed by the emotion, they can’t think with their logical left brains yet.

Rather than force our logic upon them getting angry that they aren’t listening, try this: Connect and Redirect.

First, connect your emotional right brain with their emotional right brain. After than connection is...

6 Reasons I Track Every Minute I Work

For the last four years now I have consistently tracked every minute of time I work on different projects. I started keeping track of the time I spent on projects using a Google spreadsheet in December 2013. I heard a few writers and entrepreneurs talk about doing this and because I’m an analytical person, I found the practice to be very valuable. In October 2014 I started using Toggl to track my time and I’ve been very happy with it. Some people also use RescueTime.

Why I Track My Time

Here...

October 2017 Project Update

Welcome to the October 2017 Monthly Project Report. My goal with this post is to help other authors, entrepreneurs, leaders, or anyone else who wants to make an impact on others. Each month I will share how I spent my time as a creative entrepreneur and the lessons I’ve learned along the way. My hope is that those lessons will help others in their journeys, too. I’ve always been inspired by bloggers who post monthly income reports (Pat Flynn, John Lee Dumas, Melyssa Griffin). They show how su...

The Two Fixed Mindsets

Have you heard of Carol Dweck’s research on mindset? It was popularized in her book by that title, Mindset.

Here is her TED Talk on her research:

I was blessed to have read about her research while studying education at the University of Notre Dame in 2004-2005. I also got to apply her work to coaching while working for the sports education program Play Like A Champion Today.

But it wasn’t until I actually read her book this month that I realized there are actually two kinds of fixed minds...

A 1% Better Writer

What if we approached each project asking ourselves: “How can I make this 1% better?

This is a great growth mindset question.

Today, if I were to sit down to work on my book and think about the ways I can make it 1% better, I would be more willing to put in the grunt work of clarifying language. I would go and find the right story or example to replace what I have there now. I would forgive myself for writing something imperfect and mediocre because I’m not seeking perfection all in one sitti...

Identify Your Blogging Villain

Steven Pressfield started a series on his blog titled “Start with the Villain.” I haven’t written any fiction yet, but it sounds like great advice.

It got me thinking this morning.

“Start with the villain” is great advice for non-fiction writing, too.

In fact, Pressfield is well known for his incredible work of non-fiction in The War of Art. In that book identified and defined the Resistance, an unrecognized enemy that artists and entrepreneurs struggle to overcome to create their work.

If yo...