aaronsmarshall-blog

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I don’t read many books, but when I do, I read books like this. Solid wisdom in here for any person or team aspiring to new creative heights.

Enjoy!

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Doing what you love requires bitter seasons of doing what you hate. To love is to suffer. To have passion is to have pain.

Aaron Marshall

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They copied all they could follow but they couldn’t copy my mind so I left them sweating and stealing a year and a half behind.

Rudyard Kipling

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There is no passion to be found in playing small - in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.

Nelson Mandela

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No

The Telephone purports to transmit the speaking voice over telegraph wires. We found that the voice is very weak and indistinct, and grows even weaker when long wires are used between the transmitter and receiver. Technically, we do not see that this device will be ever capable of sending recognizable speech over a distance of several miles. Messer Hubbard and Bell want to install one of their “telephone devices” in every city. The idea is idiotic on the face of it. Furthermore, why would any person want to use this ungainly and impractical device when he can send a messenger to the telegraph office and have a clear written message sent to any large city in the United States? The electricians of our company have developed all the significant improvements in the telegraph art to date, and we see no reason why a group of outsiders, with extravagant and impractical ideas, should be entertained, when they have not the slightest idea of the true problems involved. Mr. G.G. Hubbard’s fanciful predictions, while they sound rosy, are based on wild-eyed imagination and lack of understanding of the technical and economic facts of the situation, and a posture of ignoring the obvious limitations of his device, which is hardly more than a toy … In view of these facts, we feel that Mr. G.G. Hubbard’s request for $100,000 of the sale of this patent is utterly unreasonable, since this device is inherently of no use to us. We do not recommend its purchase.

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Misty Cliffs

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We found an unbelievable beach in Langebaan. Just an hour north of Cape Town. The crystal clear warm water is often super shallow, you can see Zurich stomping around out there. It also happens to be a stellar kiteboarding spot, which is how we found it. Dear Family & Friends, your excuses for not visiting us here are going to be really hard to make. :)

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Took my father-in-law shark cage diving. It was just as magical as the first time.

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My boys love the new gear as much as I do!

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If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.

Richard Branson

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Introducing Obaby, the newest member of the Over family.

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A product/market fit is great. A passion/market fit is bliss. 

Aaron Marshall

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On a windy day, fourteen years ago, I was body boarding in Northwest Oregon (where I grew up). I spotted a truck driving down the beach in step with somebody further out in the ocean with a big kite and what looked like some kind of board on his feet. I learned later that these people were testing primitive kites before the sport was really much of a thing.

I have been fascinated by Kiteboarding every since.

Ten years ago, in Huntington Beach, California, I bought a huge 14 foot kite, got a basic lesson and tried to fly it on my own the next weekend during a storm. That was dumb. All I remember was seeing the top of a lifeguard tower before pouring the sand against the sand. Fast forward 9 years; I move with my family to one of the Kiteboarding meccas, Cape Town, South Africa.

I've been here 6 months now, and making lots of excuses. Yesterday, with the encouragement of my friend Matt Winn, and lessons from a super enthusiastic polish girl, I got up on a Kiteboard.

I felt everything. An incredible connection with the wind and water. A release from years of fear. A life long dream realized.

It was magnificent.

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Needles, dentists and Great White Sharks. My greatest fears. As of today I've faced them all.

We were dangling in a cage off the side of a very rocky boat. So rocky that I threw up in the cage. We assumed we would be in the cold water for only a few minutes... But it was more like 45 minutes. Jeff was shivering so much he was shaking the cage. We saw several great whites, some so close you could touch them. One swam right past our cage that was a whopping 4 meters (13+ feet) long. Even the guides were stoked.

I thought it would be terrifying. Instead it was serene and awesome. They are incredible creatures. Humbling and majestic.

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Very excited to have these folks visiting us for the next 8 days. We are working on a ridiculously fun, secret project.

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If you work for Elon you have to accept the discomfort. But in that discomfort is the kind of growth you can’t get anywhere else, and worth every ounce of blood and sweat.

Dolly Singh, What is it like to work with Elon Musk

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Paragliders land in front of our apartment all the time. Somewhat by chance, I ran into a group on top of signal hill today... About 10 minutes later they had me strapped in, running and jumping off the hill. This was totally unplanned. They even had to lend me shoes (im a flip flopper). While we were in the air I had a thought... Nichole and Zurich might be at the park... I texted, yes texted while we were paragliding and told her to look for me in the sky with a blue and gray chute. They happened to be there already! We landed right beside them and the chute collapsed directly in front of Zurich. He was stunned! He ran up and hugged me with a severe look of disbelief. Shoot, I'm still in disbelief. What an epic, spontaneous day. Mantra: Adventure? Yes.