Every week on Lifehacker, we interview a successful person about their career and their work habits, in a column called How I Work. And every week we ask them, “What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?” Here are the best answers our guests gave us in 2018.
Roxane Gay, author
Every time I share this I feel awkward because the advice is so simple and seems trite but it was not offered tritely and I do not offer it here tritely.
When I was going on the academic job market, worrying about the campus interview, my friend Matt Seigel told me to just be myself because otherwise, if I got hired as the person I was pretending to be, I would have to keep up that pretense for the rest of my career.
He was absolutely right about being myself, for better and worse.
Alex Moore, CEO of Boomerang
Spend at least as much time playing to your strengths as working on your weaknesses.
Rhett & Link, YouTubers
In Steve Martin’s book
Born Standing Up
, he said he wishes he could have gone back to his younger self and said “Everything is gonna be okay.” We tell that to ourselves a lot.
Patrick Moberg, creator of Dots and Two Dots
“Take your pleasures seriously.”—Charles Eames
Morra Aarons-Mele, Author of Hiding in the Bathroom
Sales is problem solving. When you understand that, you don’t need to spend hours networking, schmoozing, or building your personal brand. Understand what your customer needs help with!
Hrishikesh Hirway, host of Song Exploder
Regarding my music career: “It’s not a race.”
Maurice Cherry, designer
Karma is real, but it’s not always your job to serve it.
Sherry Huss, co-founder of Maker Faire
Take control of your mornings. You can always determine the time that you start your day, but in the event world, it is hard to control when your day stops.
Brittany Luse, co-host of The Nod
Obey the HALT check: Try not to say, do, or decide anything lasting, permanent, or important if you’re feeling hungry, angry, lonely, or tired. As the great Kathy Tu of
Nancy
always says, “There is no such thing as a podcast emergency.
Michelle Woo, parenting editor at Lifehacker
When little kids are melting down—say, lashing out and generally being terrors—it means that they’re yearning for connection. So even if it goes against your instincts, what you can do is kneel down and give them a big hug. Hold them and just breathe.
I try to apply this advice to others in my life (at least in my head—I won’t randomly hug you), and it also helps me take care of myself. If I’m feeling cranky or overwhelmed or mean, I need to stop what I’m doing, reflect on what I need, and sometimes reach out for help.
Ben Chestnut, co-founder of Mailchimp
My mother used to say, “You become your friends.” It’s true—over time, you start to reflect the people you hang around. This has inspired me to pick really good friends who are role models for me and lift me up.
Adrienne Willis, executive and artistic director of the Lumberyard Center for Film and Performing Arts
Bobby Muller (veterans’ rights and peace activist, whose organization, Vietnam Veterans for America, co-founded the
International Campaign to Ban Landmines
, which won a 1997 Nobel Peace Prize) told me: “The moment you stop questioning your own assumptions, you become irrelevant. And non-profits die when their dedication to mission doesn’t take into account their relevance.” He said leaders need to do the same constantly or they will lose the courage of their own convictions.
Brian Fox, author of the GNU Bash shell
“Stop doing that.”