Josh Allred's Blog

Back in their day, it was really hard to fit Dinosaur Jr. into a genre. And so was the Descendents.

And sometimes the best stuff is sort of recognizable but something you can’t quite put your finger on.

The hard part isn’t to give criticism. Everyone knows how to criticize everything.

The hard part is receiving criticism and not internalizing it. It’s understanding that it is about the work and not you as a person.

Perhaps, then, the absolute master is the one who knows how to criticize in a way that the recipient will accept.

Sometimes, we work so hard to get into a fellowship, a company, or a school, but then the reality sinks in that we made it. Now what?

Getting into med school is hard. Finishing med school is even more challenging. Then, the day comes when you have to slice someone open. That I imagine is harder too.

The rate of change is as important as the actual change. When change happens too quickly, the instinct is to slow things down. This could be wise, but it can also be a sign of an unwillingness to move.

We spend a ton of time thinking about what is going wrong today and how it will affect tomorrow.

But we don’t spend enough time imagining all the things that could get better.

That’s the thing about opportunities: We don’t know where the road will take us. More importantly, to understand, it’s rarely the problems we see coming that surprise us. On the contrary, it’s the problems bubbling in the background that we can’t see coming that are the natural source of anxiety.

There’s a gap between what we think is happening and what is happening.

That gap is filled with all our thoughts, feelings, imagination, and observations.

What we discount is what we don’t know, which is really the bulk of this gap. We want to be so sure, so much so that we will play this off as a minor detail.

So much focus is placed on climbing a mountain that one forgets that climbing down one is its own challenge.

With any achievement, the question is often asked, “What’s next?” But really, the question should be, “What now?”

There’s a difference between being back at the car and on the summit.

The demand from the market is for humans to act more like machines.

What makes us human is the all the inefficiencies the market cannot stand.

Data can contradict itself. Which means more data is needed. Soon, you can have too much to sift through and rely on something else.

Wisdom, on the other hand, seems to mix better with more wisdom.

Two things can be true at the same time. Even to the point, they are paradoxical.

The first thing we must do is learn to see these things.

But the real skill is dealing with this tension in life.