Celeste Combs

27 years pioneering product design with focus on people and experiences that delight. Biz advisor and mentor. Photographer. Master’s Athlete.

[Nick Knudsen 🇺🇸 @NickKnudsenUS]

Holy hell this ad from @VoteVets absolutely eviscerates Trump.

Share this everywhere.

Because NOBODY in our armed forces should EVER have to salute that man again.

[Marius Hauken @mhauken]

Out of the 200+ iPhone tips I've shared, these 10 are the game-changers that most people were unaware of:

[Billie Jean King @BillieJeanKing]

97 years young and look at that arm!

Happy birthday to Maybelle Blair, original member of the All-American Girls' Professional Baseball League, and an inspiration for the movie, "A League of Their Own."

[The Winning Difference @thewinningdiff1]

"This thing about grit is real.
It is about competing.
It is about pushing yourself.
It is about striving to be at your best.
Nobody else controls this but you.
You have an opportunity to create your own value.
Let's get a little gritty." -Pete Carroll

[Cori Close @CoachCoriClose]

Coaching people’s hearts and caring about the process over the outcome, doesn’t make you less competitive. But it does make you more committed! #CarRidesWithCori #EliteHABITS #UNCOMMON

[Billie Jean King @BillieJeanKing]

Betty Reid Soskin was the oldest ranger in the National Park Service until she retired last year at age 100.

Today, she turns 102 years young.

As a U.S. park ranger, she cemented the Black wartime experience into history @RosieRiveterNPS.

Happy birthday, Betty!

📷: NPS

[Celeste Combs @CelesteCombs]

@CoachCoriClose @TimothyKight @AndyStanley Love this!! I lead a team at CVS Digital and focused on culture!! Very helpful!! Btw! #GoBruins

[LiveCamChaser @LiveCamChaser]

Whoa! Here's quick time-lapse of the beautiful #Sunset tonight from a Cape Cod, #Massachusetts livecam as #HurricaneLee moves North over the Atlantic. 😍 #mawx #Hurricane #Lee

[Billie Jean King @BillieJeanKing]

Congratulations to @CocoGauff on her very first Grand Slam Singles title!

She is the #USOpen Women's Singles champion! 👏

[Billie Jean King @BillieJeanKing]

30 years ago today, my Shero, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, became the first Jewish woman & the second woman justice overall to take the judicial oath for the Supreme Court of the United States.

Remember her name.

[Celeste Combs @CelesteCombs]

@PatrickS___ @elonmusk We saw it as well and have video

[MLB @MLB]

25 years ago today, Ken Griffey Jr. scaled the wall at Tiger Stadium to make one of the most impressive catches ever. 😳

[Seattle Mariners @Mariners]

.@JRODshow44 just fooled EVERYONE 🤣🤣🤣

[Arjun Mahadevan (Mr. LLC 🇺🇸) @ArjunMahadevan]

What if I told you there is a billionaire who controls your medical records.

She started Epic Systems in a Wisconsin basement in 1979.

And now she's the richest woman you've never heard of.

10 matter-of-fact messages from the Midwest billionaire, Judy Faulkner:

1. “If you see a snake, kill it; don’t form a committee on snakes.”

2. “What you put up with is what you stand for.”

3. "One of the things that made Epic strong when I wrote the original code was that it never occurred to me to do anything other than put the patient at the center. I developed a clinical system at a time when the health care world had pretty much only billing and lab systems available."

4. “I have never had any personal desire to live lavishly.  I’m probably among the billionaires who are indifferent to the lifestyle that great wealth can buy.  There is no apartment in New York or Paris.  There is no ranch in Aspen.  There are no private or even corporate jets.”

5. “I was a programmer, I thought it was fun.  I’m not sure in the beginning I felt that I’m here to save lives.  Why do you come to work?  For the paycheck?  For something interesting to do?  For customers?  For the competition?  For the mission?  If I had to circle one reason, it’s for my customers.”

6. “Programming is a mix of language, math and art, and I remain a software developer at heart.  And I have no plans to retire or even slow down.”

7. “[On living in Wisconsin] The first thing you’ve got to like is the people.  It’s the Midwest work ethic, the Midwest nice.  I was just in an area with gated communities.  I do like the Midwest where there is much more a feeling of… we trust each other.”

8. “I think it’s very interesting, the difference between ‘thank you’ and ‘congratulations.’  To me, ‘thank you’ makes it a personal thing, like you did it for me, and I don’t like to take that from a person unless it was something they did for me.  So, I prefer to congratulate them on a job well done if that was something they did themselves.”

9. “Many years ago I asked my young children what two things they needed from their parents.  They said ‘food and money.’  I told them ‘roots and wings.’  My goal in pledging 99% of my assets to philanthropy is to help others with roots – food, warmth, shelter, health care, education – so they too can have wings.”

10. “I took the route of higher education and took a risk starting a business.  My success didn’t happen overnight, but over time with steady improvement.”

***

Remember: It's never too late to turn your dream idea into your dream business.

***

That's a wrap. Hope you enjoyed these matter-of-fact messages from Judy. If you did:

1. Follow me @arjunmahadevan for more like this (and for more on how to turn your dream idea into your dream US business with @doolaHQ)

2. RT this, if you can, to share these messages with a friend

[Billie Jean King @BillieJeanKing]

5 weeks to go.

#MondayMotivation #USOpen

[BaseballHistoryNut @nut_history]

Great shot of Dodger Stadium. That’s Sandy Koufax on the mound

[Billy Oppenheimer @bpoppenheimer]

In 1971, Phil Knight was teaching accounting at Portland State University.

One day, he overheard a graphic design student say that she couldn’t afford to take a painting class.

Knight paid her $35 to design a logo for his start-up shoe company.

When he saw the design, he said,

“I don't know if I like it, but maybe it will grow on me.”

Knight didn’t have time to fuss over the logo. "We had a deadline," he explains. He had signed a contract with a factory to produce 3,000 pairs of Nike's first shoe. "Production was starting on the shoe that Friday."

Before then, they needed a logo.

“You don’t like it?” Knight’s chief operating officer asked of the student’s design.

“I don’t love it,” Knight said, “but we’re out of time. It’ll have to do.”

Takeaway 1:

It's said that if not for constraints and deadlines, nothing would get made.

George Lucas, for instance, worked on drafts of the first Star Wars for years. "I never arrived at a degree of satisfaction where I thought the screenplay was perfect," he said.

But then he struck a deal with a movie executive from United Artists—"At that point, it became an obligation," Lucas said.

"If I hadn't been forced to shoot the film, I would doubtless still be rewriting it now."

Takeaway 2:

At Nike's IPO in 1980, Phil Knight gave the student who designed the Swoosh 500 shares.

She never sold.

Since the IPO, there have been 7 stock splits. So those 500 shares have become 64,000 shares. At the time of this writing, Nike is at $110/share.

$110/share x 64,000 shares = $7,040,000.

It makes me think of something Robert Greene once told me:

“Above all else, focus on acquiring knowledge and skills. Knowledge and skills are like gold—a currency you will transform into something more valuable than you can imagine."

Follow @bpoppenheimer for more content like this!

[Billie Jean King @BillieJeanKing]

Terrific news.

Always a fighter. https://t.co/O6qxcqxLJ7

[Billie Jean King @BillieJeanKing]

"If we want scientists and engineers for the future, we should be cultivating the girls as much as the boys."

40 years ago today, my friend Sally Ride became the first American woman in space.

Her history-making flight changed the world. https://t.co/FUTuGW26YX

[Divers Alert Network @DANGlobalSafety]

Not feeling well during a dive? 😷

PADI developed a new hand signal for "I don't feel well" that EVERY diver should know. ⚡️ Read more about it here: https://t.co/7Nds8yAmHM.