Adam’s Daily Post

When dealing with talent, it’s not about “good” vs “bad”.

It’s about “how good”.

Juniors aren’t as experienced as Seniors, but they’re nevertheless “good” at lots of things.

If someone’s consistently underperforming, it doesn’t necessarily make them “bad”. It could mean you’ve assigned them the wrong “level”.

Let Lv1 creators create Lv1 creations. They’re excellent at that. They’ll upgrade to Lv2 when they’re ready.

We can all be great at the level we’re at, without having to compare with those at other levels.

What’s the difference between a fit and unfit person?

Or someone with lots of savings or not much savings?

Or someone with a good marriage or a bad marriage?

Or someone with a vast skillset or a weak skillset?

Lots of things.

But one of those things is that the former always invests a little bit daily, and the latter always thinks they could do something about it tomorrow.

A little bit daily makes all the difference.

Toyota and Lexus.

MAD and MB&F.

iPhone 17e and iPhone 17 Pro.

Bundled membrane keyboards and hot-swappable mechanical keyboards.

Book and signed book.

Some people want the accessible one, others want the elevated one. It’s not really up to us to decide for them, or what their reasons should be for choosing one over the other.

Take how our StrategyComics product has an accessible option (bespoke strategy, wrapped in a selection of pre-made stories) and an elevated option (same strategy, entirely bespoke story and artwork).

Many want the accessible option. Some want the elevated one. Their choice.

What might your accessible and elevated options be?

What won’t they dare do?

A money-back guarantee? “That’s crazy, we can’t afford that!”

A cheaper option? “That’s crazy, we can’t sustain that!”

A more expensive option? “That’s crazy, no one will pay that!”

A version that lasts forever? “That’s crazy, no one will value that!”

A version that only lasts one week? “That’s crazy, people want longer than that!”

See how every single one has a knee-jerk reaction about how it can’t be done?

Those knee-jerk reactions are lazy. Of course they can be done.

The question isn’t whether or not it’s possible.

The question is which ones do your audience want, that you dare do?

Small, forgettable, similar bodies of work are quick to build.

Heck, LLMs can probably do most of the heavy lifting for you, if you’re that way inclined.

And it’s good news. Because it means those types of work are going away, their value diminished by the hordes of hustlers looking for their big gold biscuit.

The things worth making are slow to build. Things that require patience, discipline, care, commitment, craft, and time.

All things the hustlers don’t have.

So whatever you plan on building next,

Let it slow, let it slow, let it slow.

When we work on two projects at once, how clever we feel.

Like a productivity monster.

Perhaps you’re chipping away at one, maybe an LLM is researching another, and there you are. Doing multiple things.

Badly.

Multitasking usually only slows us down.

Single-tasking usually feels like we’re slowing us down.

But it’s the other way around.

Your uniqueness should push people away.

Not everyone, but some of them.

The wrong ones. Those its not intended for.

Because the act of being clearly “not for them” is often exactly the action required to be clearly “just for me” for those you wish to serve.

A louder, faster “No” from the wrong ones is precisely the signal you should be looking for.

The wrong No means the right Yes.

If you go big, go hard, spend big to look big, you hurt yourself.

Your runway goes away.

And everyone needs a runway, no matter how big their operation becomes.

So really, your competition isn’t your competitors.

Your competition is your costs.

If your runway is longer than theirs, you have space for the brave work you seek to build.

Last August I wrote:

Good, compassionate, committed people are better than AI.
AI is better than Bad, lazy, selfish people.

What’s fascinating is how the line isn’t moving, but people are.

Good talent is starting to “phone it in” to AI, intoxicated by the ease.

And from that ease, comes atrophy.

And from that atrophy, comes people who aren’t good at their thing anymore.

And so they change their position, from being better than AI to being worse. Not because of competency, but because they stopped being as good, or as committed, as they used to be.

Shame.

This is my 3000th post on my blog.

Some are great. Most are alright. Some stink.

That’s fine.

Keep hitting publish. The reps that count.