Striving Makes You Happy

Welcome to The Art of The Impossible, the weekly newsletter where I unearth five pieces of content which I hope will both inspire and embolden you.

When I was in the depths of working in startups, I always wished I could find some respite and inspiration on my weekends, and this newsletter is the thing I wish existed so I do hope you enjoy it.

PODCAST

The UX of Emotion: From Facebook to Figma | Soleio

In this episode of Minus One podcast from South Park Commons, Facebook’s second designer, Soleio (Soleio Cuervo) shares how he helped build the emotional layer of the internet in the early days including his time at Facebook and Dropbox to now backing tools like Figma and Framer to evolve it further.

Watch/listen to the full episode here.

QUOTE

“Striving makes you happy. Pursuit is the opposite of depression. People at the end of their life, who said they were the happiest with their life, were the ones who had spent the most time in the flow of fascinating work.”

― Derek Sivers, How to Live: 27 conflicting answers and one weird conclusion

INTERVIEW

Dyson Breaks Down His Biggest Inventions and His 'Life of Failure' | WSJ

Watching James Dyson, it’s hard to believe he is not far off 80. He still has the youthful enthusiasm needed in that special breed of founder and inventor, now worth over $15 Billion.

In this interview with WSJ, he talks about the role of persistence - he spent years building and testing more than 5,000 hand-made prototypes of Dyson’s cyclonic vacuum cleaner before it even hit the market. He also discusses the idea of failure when innovating, what he wishes he had invented first and why he has stayed so involved in the business, over three decades after founding it.

Watch here and I highly recommend his book - Invention: A Life of Learning through Failure - which you can buy here.

BOOK

How to Live: 27 conflicting answers and one weird conclusion by Derek Sivers

I am revisiting this great book by Derek Sivers this summer.

Not quite non-fiction, not quite self-help. It's a work of art about conflicting philosophies.

Many books believe they know how you should live. But each book disagrees with the next... In "How to Live" each chapter believes it knows how you should live. And each chapter disagrees with the next.

One chapter makes a compelling argument for why you should be completely independent, keeping all options open. The next chapter argues why you should commit to one career, one place, and one person.

One chapter persuades you to be fully present, and experience each moment. The next, to delay gratification and invest for the future.

Which one is right? Which does the author believe? All of them. It's a fun philosophy of conflicting philosophies.

A very unique and thought-provoking book. Meant for reflection as much as instruction.

113 succinct pages of Sivers insights. No philosophers are quoted. No -isms are named. Only actionable directives. The end result feels more like poetry than prose.

Because life is complicated…

You can buy the book here.

WATCH

I had the pleasure of interviewing Navier founder Sampriti Bhattacharyya for my book Female Innovators at Work and I have thoroughly enjoyed watching her on her continued founder journey so it was great to see Elon Musk biographer Ashlee Vance feature her this week on his channel, Core Memory.

From Vance:

Navier, a company tucked away in a pinball arcade in Alameda, California, has built the N30, a hydrofoiling boat that glides above choppy waters at high speeds while keeping passengers comfortable enough to have normal conversations.

The woman behind this venture is Sampriti Bhattacharyya, an MIT-trained engineer who pivoted from aerospace to maritime after realizing how little we actually know about our own oceans. Her N30 can cruise 75 miles on a single charge, packed with sensors and software that make micro-adjustments 30 to 50 times per second to keep the boat stable above the water. What starts as luxury water taxis for Miami and the Maldives is actually a Trojan horse for much bigger ambitions: autonomous cargo barges, coastal transportation networks, and getting America back into the serious business of shipbuilding.

Bhattacharyya sees hydrofoiling technology as critical to national security, pointing out that while the US produces maybe 200 vessels a year, China cranks out thousands. Her vision involves transforming waterways into highways, connecting coastal cities in ways that could fundamentally change how we live and work.

Watch here.

As always, thank you so much for reading this newsletter and for listening to the podcast. If you have a minute spare, I would so appreciate a review of the pod or a heart on this newsletter - both help others to find it and my goal is to inspire as many people as possible with the stories I share.

Thank you and I hope you have a lovely weekend.

Danielle