Paul Harris

Ex-Cityboy, ‘Hawks, Only UK Gopher? Flames, UFC, Spurs (sometimes), #FPL SCC cricket badger, Co-founder - BNC, Red Wine, Scotchy Scotch - Stay Soche!

[Paul Harris @yoface43]

@SpursOfficial Guys - what is going on with your customer service? All the numbers i’m calling are just ringing out. The website is AWFUL!! I’ve emailed twice and no one has called me back. It’s impossible to spend money with you! HELP!!

[Paul Harris @yoface43]

@des_brennan @SpursOfficial @SpursSupport Same here! What is going on with the customer service here??

[Paul Harris @yoface43]

@ANGC_burner Now we know how he wins more tournaments than Kim Jong Un!

[Paul Harris @yoface43]

@British_Airways Thanks for coming back but that’s not really the point. The app isn’t working and hasn’t done for a long time. I uninstalled and reinstalled and still getting errors

[Paul Harris @yoface43]

@British_Airways what is wrong with your #Avios app? It’s been doing this for weeks??

[Paul Harris @yoface43]

@CubanOnlyTrump Taylor Swift fans be madddd!

[Paul Harris @yoface43]

@footballfights Probably thought adults could act like adults…but they’re Chelsea fans soooo….

[Daniel Whitehead @DanielW78719326]

@skytv @ufc297 @ufc Woke up this morning to watch UFC 297 only to find the recording ends just before the main event!! Thank you Sky!! #pointless #useless #WouldntHappenWithVirgin

[OKKO @OKKO20356]

@tntsports thanks for taking my money for your channel… I recorded the UFC last night and the recording finished before the main event. This is not good enough #UFC

[Zenith Morris @kendogg83]

@SkyHelpTeam @tntsports ufc main even recording cut off before main even started again! I want a refund!

[AB @A_B_C_1988]

@SkyHelpTeam thanks for ruining UFC 297. Set it to record, try to watch it this morning and the recording ends before the main event. GOOD JOB

[Paul Harris @yoface43]

@JoeNaConnacht Exceptional

[Paul Harris @yoface43]

@jwalkermobile Get to Pasjoli if in LA (Santa Monica). Incredible chef and team!

[Paul Harris @yoface43]

@jwalkermobile Sugar Heaven!!

[Paul Harris @yoface43]

@TheMSHub In a world where there’s SO MUCH divide, this is one instance where I don’t see much support for other side imof the argument 😂😂

[Paul Harris @yoface43]

@CrimeLdn Does he have to change his name to Russ Hundreds of Thousands now?

[Paul Harris @yoface43]

@JCFights @jc382

[Paul Harris @yoface43]

@MIGHTYSPURZ Gordon Durie

[Paul Harris @yoface43]

Regardless of you political views, I can’t see how anyone can argue with this…

[Supertanskiii @supertanskiii]

A pandemic is horrifying but facing it whilst being governed by corrupt criminals was terrifying. It was their job to lead and keep us safe but we were left to fend for ourselves. They pickpocketed us as we died, now they’re scrabbling about in the gutter trying to cover it up.

[Billy Oppenheimer @bpoppenheimer]

In 2009, Lin-Manuel Miranda was invited to perform at the White House.

His musical “In The Heights” had just won a Grammy & 4 Tony Awards.

So the White House was expecting him to perform something from Heights.

Instead, he debuted a song from a rap album he’d been working on:

Miranda explained that he'd been working on this "concept album about the life of someone I think embodies hip-hop...Treasury Secretary, Alexander Hamilton."

The crowd laughed.

"You laugh, but it's true!" Miranda replied.

"He was born a penniless orphan in St. Croix of illegitimate birth, became George Washington's right-hand man, became Treasury Secretary, caught beef with every other Founding Father.

And all on the strength of his writing.

I think he embodies the word's ability to make a difference."

Takeaway 1:

Lin-Manuel Miranda said he initially picked up Ron Chernow's biography of Alexander Hamilton, "thinking maybe I’ll get a funny song out of it—some jokey-rap thing about the Hamilton/Burr duel."

Then, as he read it, "I thought I would write a bunch of songs that tell the greatest hits of Hamilton’s life."

Then, as he wrote the songs, he realized it could be a musical.

Most things of magnitude start small.

Talking about working with Nobel Prize winners, interviewing the great minds of his time, and studying the greats of all time—Richard Hamming famously said, to do great work, you have to:

"Plant the little acorns from which the mighty oak trees grow."

Takeaway 2:

When Lin-Manuel Miranda told people he was working on a hip-hop album about a founding father, people laughed.

He worked on the concept for 8 years—so, Miranda said, “I had a lot of people look at me like I was crazy for a very long time.”

Speaking to entrepreneurs at the startup incubator Y Combinator, the billionaire Peter Thiel drew a Venn diagram on a whiteboard.

In one of the overlapping circles, he wrote, “seems like a bad idea,” and in the other, “is a good idea.” The intersection is the sweet spot for doing great work, Thiel said.

Everyone knows that to do great work you need natural ability and you need to work hard.

But there’s a third ingredient that doesn’t get talked about or written about as often: the ability to work on what "seems like a bad idea."

- - -

As he was working on what he thought was going to be a hip-hop album, Miranda met his hero, the composer Stephen Sondheim. Sondheim asked him what he was working on.

"And I told him, 'I’m working on this hip-hop album, like a ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ concept album about Alexander Hamilton.' And he threw back his head and guffawed, and he said, 'No one will expect that from you. That’s amazing. Keep writing that…Keep surprising us.'"

Follow @bpoppenheimer for more content like this!