How We Misunderstand Language Through Grammar
Here’s why most writing advice is not merely pointless, but corrosive. A lot of the things we think we know or believe are simply grammatical residue. A classic example: “It is raining.” There is no “it.” It only exists grammatically. Yet, we come to believe in an it. And then illusions of agency haunt our […]
The Path Over Points
Goals matter more than metrics. Trajectories matter more than goals. I suppose those statements go against most conventional wisdom. I still stand by them. Goals are more like way stations on a path. Perhaps they have numbers attached to them, but the numbers are not the meaning. Case in point—weightlifting. It’s taken me just under […]
Aligning Marketing Actions with Strategic Insights
“Marketing sometimes has this activity reflex, where they just go and do things without really taking the time to properly align those things with the underpinnings of the problem.” As quoted in an excellent article in The Financial Brand by Sean Allocca Marketing trends like growth marketing and demand generation play a dual role—they are […]
Avoiding Unsavory Marketing Tactics
Don’t adopt tactics that are more ick than tact. At any given moment, there are voices shouting at you trying to get you do the wrong thing. They want you to second-guess your moral instincts. Maybe things really are different in some new world they trick you into imagining. They want you to reject your […]
The Power of Interaction Without Expectation
A more accurate title for Charles Duhigg’s Supercommunicators would be “How to Use Friends and Get Things From People.” Some of the insights are interesting enough, until you realize they are a guide to straight-up sociopathic behavior. Even if you make it up with the lipstick of “connection,” using vulnerability to obtain an outcome is […]
Cultivating a Culture of Challenge in Leadership
Being a leader can create a dangerous distortion field around you. – People will say they agree with you even if they don’t. – People will believe what you say even if they know better. You’re always subject to low-level anthropological phenomena. Your status and people’s fear and safety impulses can combine to bend the […]
Why Authenticity Can’t Be Automated
So, time for a harsh truth. If you need AI to generate your “content ideas” for you, you are a fraud. You are doing nothing more than bullshitting people. If someone is curious enough to gather some surface-level, maybe-or-maybe-not-accurate content about your subject matter, why wouldn’t they just use AI to generate it for themselves? […]
How External Insights Disrupt Internal Echo Chambers
One guaranteed way to dislodge groupthink—work with external third parties who engage with you as trusted partners. You need people who can have shared values and shared commitments without being part of the same collective trance. Obviously, I say this with a fair amount of self-interest. But that’s part of the point. Differing incentives are […]
Strategic Musings of a Twelve-Year-Old World Conqueror
When I was 12 years old, I had a strategy to achieve global domination. Quite literally. I was an extremely weird kid. The world is lucky I turned out to be kind and ethical. But there’s a lesson about “strategy” in this story. My childhood strategy was about 20 pages of notes on how I […]
The End of Comparative Success
What if we all understood that… – Your brags have nothing to do with my success and mine have nothing to do with yours? – Your assertions have nothing to do with my challenges, nor mine with yours? And what if we all acted accordingly? What if we all understood ourselves as having lots to […]