“There is a second self inside you, an inner, shadow Self. This self doesn’t care about you. It doesn’t love you. It has its own agenda, and it will kill you. It will kill you like cancer. It will kill you to achieve its agenda, which is to prevent you from actualizing your Self, from becoming who you really are. This shadow self is called, in the Kabbalistic lexicon, the ‘yetzer hara.’ The yetzer hara, Steve, is what you would call Resistance.” Rabbi Mordecai Finley, in conversation, July 4, 2010 Rabbi Mordecai Finley of Ohr HaTorah congregation in Los Angeles (one…

The phrase above is one of Seth Godin’s trademarks. I love it because, like all of Seth’s stuff, it crams a ton of wisdom into very few words. What does Seth mean by “This might not work”? Here’s what I think: There’s a concept in marketing called “the Avatar.” Are you familiar with this? An avatar is the archetype of Your Customer. The idea, if you’re a marketer, is to keep this avatar in the front of your mind, particularly when you’re developing a new product, writing a new book, organizing a new enterprise. You want to ask yourself questions…

The following is from an interview with the writer and director Paul Schrader (“Taxi Driver,” “Raging Bull,” “Light Sleeper,” “First Reformed,” and his newest, “Master Gardener”) from the L.A. Times, September 13, 2020.

I wrote in a post a few weeks ago that

My friend Tony has a theory about accidents, i.e. fender-benders, sprained ankles, etc. He believes they’re the body’s way of grounding us when we get too far into our own heads.

[Special thanks to Maxima Kahn for bringing back one of my favorite posts. And even more special thanks to Rosanne Cash for inspiring it. Here it is:]

As a 22-year-old lieutenant, Giora Romm became the first fighter pilot ace (shooting down five enemy planes) of the Israel Air Force during the Six Day War of 1967. It was my great good fortune and honor to have met Giora and interviewed him (and his wife Miriam) for The Lion’s Gate (Penguin Sentinel 2014). Giora passed away this Saturday after a long battle with cancer. He was 78.

A story from WWII: In the early fighting in Southeast Asia, the Japanese were seriously kicking the British Army’s butt. Things had reached such a desperate pass that an entire division, including its Gurkha components, had to be airlifted 1500 miles to safety—an emergency evacuation, though smaller, nearly on a par with Dunkirk.

We said in last week’s post that self-doubt was simply Resistance. And that the stronger it was, the more certain we could be that we were on the right track.