

Bill Murray on taking chances and saying "No" - nate
http://ninjasandrobots.com/bill-murray-on-saying-no-and-taking-chances

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badclient
_Interviewer, Scott Raab: A lot of folks worry that if they aren't available
or don't say yes, they'll stop getting asked.

Bill: If you keep saying yes, they'll stop asking you, too. That's a much more
likely event._

I don't know if the conclusion is for everybody to start saying 'no' more.
Doesn't it depend on where you are? I know friends I stopped asking to hang
with because all I have gotten is some form of repeated 'nos' in past. On the
other hand, I have very few friends I stopped hanging with because they said
too many 'yes' and I'm not sure if the reason was that they kept saying 'yes'.

Now, there are definitely times when you are saying too many yesses but in
general, I think more people would do better by saying 'yes' than 'no' in
their life.

To actually know whether you should be saying more of 'yes' or 'no' for
yourself requires a much more nuanced evaluation than this generic post could
offer.

~~~
jwallaceparker
In the interview he's talking specifically about saying "Yes" or "No" to an
acting job.

If he says "Yes" to everything he'd be in a lot of terrible films. This could
be a detriment to his career.

I think it's a completely different situation when you're talking about
whether or not you hang out with a friend. In that case, I'd agree with you.

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mildweed
This guy should take an intro level improv comedy class. If BFM's quote was
that inspiring to him, he's got a lot of learning yet to do.

As a comedian and an entrepreneur, I can say there are many overlaps between
the two, and the willingness to take bold steps is just one of them. Another
is to trust your team members. Another is to build on others' ideas, not tear
them down. And many more.

~~~
Cushman
_Everyone_ should take an improv class, in secondary school and again in
college.

Like the bard said, everyone's an actor; most people are just really bad ones.
Knowing how your own facial expressions, gestures, voice and words really work
is a crucial survival skill in human society, and one which you are very
unlikely to pick up without a little training.

~~~
jarek
> Knowing how your own facial expressions, gestures, voice and words really
> work is a crucial survival skill in human society

You may want to rephrase this. I'm willing to accept it's useful, but it's
clearly not a survival skill or there would be a lot of dead nerds out there.

~~~
Cushman
I expect you're being downvoted for your derogatory and inaccurate use of
"nerds"-- I know several theater nerds who are phenomenal actors.

~~~
jarek
Thanks. I meant nerds in the common meaning, derogatory or not. Let's try
again and elaborate in more neutral terms:

I'm willing to accept it's useful, but it's clearly not a survival skill or
there would be a lot of dead people with weak social skills but otherwise
reasonably successful white collar lives out there.

Very very few cog-in-the-machine can't-talk-to-people tech people that
otherwise lead reasonably comfortable middle class lives in our current
society _die_ because they don't know their own facial expressions, gestures,
voice, or words.

~~~
Cushman
In that case, I'll readily admit I was using "survival" in the hyperbolic
sense of "NYC survival skills" than the literal sense of "wilderness survival
skills". I'll downgrade it to "crucially significant determiner of success" if
that's easier to stomach :)

~~~
jarek
And I'll again point out that most cog-in-the-machine can't-talk-to-people
tech people are successful by the standards of majority of North Americans,
let alone the world :)

~~~
Cushman
I never said it was the sole determiner. If you can't talk to people but you
can do tech, you can do all right for yourself; if you can talk to people and
you can do tech, you can write your own check.

People in tech need this _most_ \-- we're way too willing to write off the
_primary_ importance that other people have in our lives.

~~~
jarek
This is getting silly, but: what percentage of cases of success would you say
should exhibit a crucially significant determiner of success?

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bostonpete
I'm sorry -- is this really a "great quote"...?

 _"The essence of design lies in the process of discovering a problem shared
by many people and trying to solve it."_

Just seems kind of obvious to me.

~~~
illumen
Yeah, fairly obvious.

Design is about delivering to a brief. Not necessarily discovering a problem,
or necessarily a problem many people have.

"(noun) a specification of an object, manifested by an agent, intended to
accomplish goals, in a particular environment, using a set of primitive
components, satisfying a set of requirements, subject to constraints;"

It's really hard to judge a design without knowing the circumstances behind
it. That is the first clue that someone does not really know about design -
they will judge some design where they know nothing about the goals,
constraints, or requirements.

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hoopism
Probably should have taken his own advice when it came to Garfield.

~~~
bennesvig
He thought that was a Coen Brothers movie:
[http://www.vulture.com/2010/07/bill_murray_only_did_garfield...](http://www.vulture.com/2010/07/bill_murray_only_did_garfield.html)

~~~
drzaiusapelord
Err, that's him being funny. No one at his level just has chats on the phone
and has contracts written up and walks into a studio to do lines.

He saw a paycheck and took it. Come on, a brooding Garfield movie by the Coen
brothers?

~~~
christoph
Joel Cohen (Garfield) is different Joel Coen.

<http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0169505/>

<http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001054/>

