Always read the small print. Stop and take a breath. Say ‘I don’t know’ when you don’t know. Put service above self. You don’t know what you don’t know. Work on the biggest problems you can find. Choose the right font. Don’t worry about skills or luck. If you don’t like something about yourself, change it. Don’t be a victim. Decide what’s important to you. Learn to love uncertainty. Slower can be faster. Focus and ignore. Consistency is more important than talent. If you can’t be good, be silly. When you need to rock and roll, rock and roll; when you need to be professional, be professional. You have to eat sh*t before you can eat steak. Don’t judge. Time compounds, so use it wisely. Stop complaining, start fixing. Everyone you will ever meet knows something you don’t. Admit when you’re wrong. Be passionately dispassionate. Always have a side project. Trust people. Become the world’s foremost expert on yourself. Start at the beginning. Don’t work too much. Your parents aren’t perfect. Stop being so negative. Sometimes you have to accept that you are not good enough, and that’s fine. Underpromise, overdeliver. Nobody knows anything. Don’t fill in online surveys, like, seriously. You don’t always have to say yes. Don’t worry about what everyone thinks, just the people you respect. Never go back to the same job or company. Crying is useless. Enjoy the burn. Do it now, because in 10 years you’ll still be thinking about it. People never really act against you, they’re just looking out for the best outcome for themselves. Give yourself a break. What other people do, feel, and think, has nothing to do with you. You’re as busy as you want to be. Do the f*cking work. Don’t hide the mistakes, emphasize them. Always solve the hard problems. Everyone is making it up as they go along. When in doubt, bake a cake and share it with someone. Be careful what you wish for. Stop bragging. Don’t overthink it. Don’t get angry if they don’t take your advice. Failing doesn’t mean you are a failure. Don’t get between the grizzly and the cubs. Enjoy the journey. Never leave a meeting confused. Manage up. Don’t bring problems, bring solutions. Advice is just people talking to past versions of themselves.
Over the last year Ueno sponsored three issues of Offscreen. Offscreen is a lovely independent print magazine about the human side of technology. It is hand-made, almost, by Kai Brach, who is also lovely and human. (Hi Kai, if you’re reading this.)
One of the great things about Offscreen is the ads.
Seriously.
Each sponsor gets one spread. On the left, the company logo in white on a black background. On the right, just black text on a white background. No fancy design, no quirky typefaces, no funny business. (Kind of like European cigarette packaging, but in a good way.)
Offscreen has some great sponsors, and some of them have done great ads. Harvest did a particularly good take on Joyce’s Ulysses, time-tracking Leopold Bloom’s various personal projects/tasks on June 16, 1904. (“Harvest. Time tracking for your personal odyssey.”)
Where are we going with this? What has this got to do with the best advice anyone has ever given you?
Here are the three spreads we did for Offscreen issues #18, #19 and #20. This is not the real size, obviously.
Offscreen #18: “We have a question.”
Ueno’s first spread was really simple.
Basically, we just tried luring people into giving us free advice by saying that we are all in this together, and that one day their advice could maybe help somebody, and then we promised to post it all on our blog some day. (That’s what this post is, by the way. It’s all here, if you keep scrolling.)
We made a page to collect all the good advice, and posted the link on our various social media, begging more people for free advice.
You won’t believe what happened next. (Just kidding, it’s not that surprising.)
Offscreen #19: “You have problems.”
So here’s the thing. Ueno doesn’t just like getting free advice. We also like giving free advice, sometimes. (We mostly like giving very expensive advice. But that’s a whole different story.)
So while we waited for all the free advice from Offscreen #18 to pile up, we decided that in Offscreen #19 we’d give back. So we published some of the questions we have been asked on Twitter, and added some that we haven’t been asked yet, but totally have the answers for in case somebody asks.
For questions and answers check out the hashtag #uenosolveseverything on Twitter, or click ueno.co/solveseverything. (Nothing bad will happen.)
Offscreen #20: “This is the best advice anyone has ever given you.”
And here we are. The punchline. The big finale.
For our final spread in Offscreen #20 we posted all the free advice people sent us. It was edited for length and clarity, and sometimes for fun.
It’s all there: the great, the good, and the questionable — the practical, the flippant, and the sincere.
Taken as a whole, it’s probably too internally inconsistent to work as a holistic philosophy for life.
But don’t let that stop you.
Do you still have problems? Because Ueno has solutions.
Do you still have free advice? Because please send help.
Valgeir Valdimarsson designs words for Ueno. He lives in Paris, mostly, and yes, he is saying that to impress you. Not that life in Paris is always that great, mind you. Sometimes it makes him a little bit melancholy. And then he has to take his saxophone and play it, alone, at midnight, in the moonlight, at the foot of the Pont Neuf, just like everybody else. It’s the law.
Psst. Would you like to replace Valgeir someday? Because he’s not getting any younger, and Ueno is hiring.
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The best piece of advice I've been given is to take things one step at a time. I like the quote by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr which says, "You don't have to see the whole staircase to take the first step." There will be obstacles and tacks on some steps but keep going.
The best piece of advice I've been given is to take things one step at a time. I like the quote by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr which says, "You don't have to see the whole staircase to take the first step." There will be obstacles and tacks on some steps but keep going.
One of the best pieces of advice I've ever received is that when you look back on your life, you won't regret what you did, you'll regret what you didn't do. I like to remind myself of this when I'm not sure what to do. Learn to be your own best friend and strive for self-reliance in all that you do.
Your own happiness is a reflection of your day-to-day, the things you're doing, and most important, how you are doing them. Create your own environment. Put yourself in a place that will help you grow, not suppress your growth.
"The best advice I ever received was 'What other people say about you is none of your business. ' "I had spent so much time thinking about the impression I was making on those around me and trying to control the way in which I was perceived, I never gave any thought to how I felt.
Make your story bigger than just yourself. Find ways to contribute something positive to others as often as possible. Give and give and give. Aim for the greater good with the actions you take everyday.
to tell someone what they should do or how they should behave in a particular situation: We're here to help young people and to give them advice. The doctor gave us advice on the symptoms we should look out for. Steven gave me some good advice.
My mom's most frequent advice was, “You can do anything you want.And to whom much is given, much is required.” She said that all the time. Actually that was the only advice she ever gave me, with one exception: the last thing she said as she left me at college was, “Don't tell anyone you are poor.”
Introduction: My name is Arielle Torp, I am a comfortable, kind, zealous, lovely, jolly, colorful, adventurous person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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