Love Your Work

After nearly eight years of the Love Your Work podcast, I’m quitting. Here’s why, and What’s Next.

This is not the immediate reason I’m quitting, but it is at the root: P…

You’ve probably heard that, in a blind taste test, even experts can’t tell between white and red wine. Even if this were true – and it’s not – it wouldn’t matter.

I was in Rome last month, visiting s…

We trust the food we eat, the drinks we drink, and the air we breathe are safe. That in case they’re unsafe, someone is working to minimize our exposure, or at least tell us the risks. In The Triumph…

According to philosopher Isaiah Berlin, people think in one of two different ways: They’re either hedgehogs, or foxes. If you think like a hedgehog, you’ll be more successful as a communicator. If yo…

Many creators and aspiring creators struggle not because they don’t have enough ideas, but because they have too many. Their situations, in summary, are “Too many ideas, must pick one.” Embedded in t…

Today I have a special episode for you. If you missed last month’s AMA/Livestream, I’m delivering it right to your ears. In this AMA, I answered questions about:

• What’s the best self-publishing pla…

Shiny object syndrome can be evidence of a problem, or it can be a normal part of the creative process. If you can identify the four sources of shiny object syndrome, you can tell the difference betw…

Writing a tweet is a microcosm of writing a book. If you think deeply and carefully about every word in a tweet, and what the tweet as a whole communicates, you can extend those skills to all your wr…

Here's a bonus preview of a new podcast I've brewed just for Patreon supporters. It's Coffee w/ Kadavy. In this episode, #4, I talk about:

• I talk with special guest ChatGPT about why we will (or won…

Every message is shaped by the mechanics of media. Whether it’s a tweet, a TikTok video, a news article, or a movie, the characteristics of the medium determine how it’s made, how it’s consumed, and …

Making, recording, and evaluating predictions is a simple way to improve your thinking and decision-making. But the way to properly make and record predictions isn’t obvious. In this article, I’ll sh…

In the midst of the Great Depression, cereal manufacturer Kellogg’s switched to a shorter, six-hour day. This continued a trend that seemed inevitable: people would work less and less. But economic p…

Desire paths are trails left on the ground, by anything that frequently travels along a route. There are subcultures fascinated by desire paths as symbols of collective wisdom, disregard for authorit…

The term, “vulnerability” has spread into realms where it’s not an accurate description of what’s going on. The case for being vulnerable often doesn’t make sense. In the creative realm – and possibl…

The Prince is a political treatise, written by Niccolò Machiavelli, first distributed in 1513. It’s infamous for its apparent advice to political leaders to lie, murder, and manipulate. It’s still a …

Which would you rather have? Mild success, or wild success? Most of us would prefer wild success. But we pursue mild success. And you can’t have one when you’re going for the other.

You can’t get through a project on momentum alone. But there are mechanisms you can use to tweak your motivation and make better use of what momentum you have. These motivation mechanisms aren’t one-…

The Network, by Scott Woolley, tells the history of wireless communications, and the stories of the characters that were a part of it. It’s the first book strictly about media history that I’m summar…

A creative project is like a halfpipe. The depth of the halfpipe from which you must ascend to finish a project is equal to the height of the optimism that prompted you to begin. But there’s a way to…