Archive of posts from January 2022

Popular opportunity.

We see it all the time.

It’s Google AdWords by 2020.

It’s the BTC bull-run purchase.

It’a BAYC at 100Ξ.

These are popular opportunities, or “pop-ops” as I’m referring to them here.

But there are opportunities everywhere…

Unpopular ones…

And if you can only see pop-ops, you’ll miss all the others.

Nothing wrong with pop-ops, where attention goes, money flows too. But learning to spot not-yet-popular opportunities is a learnable superpower.

How many Picasso paintings would you recognise?

How about, how many could you name?

We all know he was a famous painter, who made great work.

But did you know he created an estimated 50,000 paintings, drawings, sculpture and ceramics during his lifetime?

50,000.

That’s a lot.

Most of us wouldn’t recognise more than 20.

One of the all-time greats… and we’d recognise 0.0004% of his work.

Not everything you make needs to be a home-run. Not everything you make...

Stressed about the future?

“No one ever loses a life other than the one they are living, and no one ever lives a life other than the one they are losing.” — Marcus Aurelius

Love this quote, written in a way that sticks in your mind so you’re less likely to forget it… the message it’s teaching us is simple:

All that we all have is now; we possess neither the past nor the future. So, to do...

Trying to get your content shared online?

Not working out to well?

Here’s a question that’s more powerful than we give it credit for:

“Would I share it?”

If the answer is “I probably would”, it’s a No.
If the answer is “No because”, it’s still a No.
If the answer is “I wouldn’t be able to help myself”, now we’re onto something.

Great content doesn’t get shared.

Mind-blowing head-turning holy-moly-look-at-that content gets shared.

The first rule of...

Reading some Plutarch, this stood out:

Spartan warriors who lost their shields received the death penalty, because “the shield protects every man in the line.”

If they lost their weapon, they were fined.

That’s quite a difference in penalties!

But it does draw attention to how important they deemed one’s ability to protect others, and what that meant to them.

The ability to attack wasn’t what ‘protect’ meant to them. To attack was to ‘attack’. No, to them,...

Long-term games give prizes to long-term players. Short-term tactics or problems do not affect the state of play.

Short-term games give prizes to short-term players. Long-term tactics or problems do not affect the state of play.

This is true in business, in trading, and in life.

Make sure you know what kind of prizes you’re looking for, and what kind of games you want to play. They’re not all the same.

When we hear “there’s good news and bad news”, we think that’s bad.

It’s not.

What we should be afraid of is “it’s all good news”.

All good news is hiding something. There’s always a challenge to overcome, always a bit of chaos when things are growing. If it’s not being shared, why is it being hidden?

All good news means no mistakes were made. And mistakes happen when we try to do hard things. No mistakes means no hard...

This is the reality.

There is too much opportunity.

If you don’t feel this is the case, you need to sharpen your opportunity-spotting skills.

But when you see how much of it there is, you have to remember:

Taking on too much opportunity at once will dampen your ability to show up properly to the ones you’ve already decided to embrace.

If an opportunity is taking a while to roll, piling on more opportunity will only slow it further.

If...

Do you have big plans for the year?

Are they so big that you wonder how you’ll get it all done?

I find that, sometimes, I have a habit of wanting to “protect” my future-self from situations.

Almost as though I think that person won’t exhibit the same levels of strength, capability, intellect and resolve as the today-me does.

Almost as though I’ve forgotten that, providing a daily discipline of growth and personal development continues, the opposite will in fact...

Do you journal? If so, how often?

I’ve made a small change to my process that is helping me immensely…

First, the inspiration:

“We reflect upon only that which we are about to do. And yet our plans for the future descend from the past.” - Seneca

At first glance Seneca is referring to reflecting on more than just your day, but there’s more to it.

He’s also talking about the plans for the future, and the relationship...

Is your work an investment, a durable good, or a commodity?

In the past, you knew your category by what you sold.
In digital, you get to choose.

If you sold an investment or luxury (such as a good stock, or prestigious timepiece) the logic is to collect, for its value will increase. Buying occurs due to scarcity and rarity.

If you sold a durable good (such as a car or smartphone) the logic is to upgrade, because its...

Please start a newsletter.

It doesn’t need to be fancy, elaborate, or perfect.

It doesn’t need the ‘best’ platform, the ‘right’ editorial calendar, or the right ‘growth plan’.

It just needs you, your work, and what you’re up to, so we can all follow along with what you’re doing.

We want to see your work.
We want to cheer you on.
We want to see you succeed.

Please start a newsletter.

There’s a ‘better’ opportunity almost upon us.

There’s a new technology that will obsolete innovations of today.
There’s a big chance that your work might not work.
There’s a better computer coming out in 8 months.
There’s an even ‘better’ opportunity after the one that’s almost here.

We can choose now or later, now or perfect…

…but now exists.
Now lets us make things better.
Now lets us make the next thing possible.
Now...

Opportunity is so abundant that even your scraps are a recipe for success.

Kingsford Charcoal has been around for 110 years and enjoys 80% BBQ market share.

It exists because each Ford Model T had 100ft² of wood in it which, over millions of cars, creates a whole lot of scrap wood.

So Ford burned it into porous, microcrystalline profit.

For 110 years.

Makes you wonder: what gold is hiding in your refuse?

When you hear, “Solve interesting problems”, what comes to mind?

Some tell me they think it’s anything but the work they’re doing. This might be an indicator that they’re ready for change.

Some tell me they don’t like it because it’s not what they’re doing and they like their work. This might be an indicator they missed something…

…That “interesting problems” aren’t a grandiose to-do list made by others for you to strike things off from.

They’re things that you...

Is freedom important to you?

What kind?

There are 2 types of freedom:

#1 Freedom To
Freedom to buy a fancy car
Freedom to quit your job
Freedom to buy a nice house
Freedom to join any club you like

#2 Freedom From
Freedom from needing to go anywhere you don’t want to go
Freedom from activities that don’t engage you
Freedom from a life dictated by external factors
Freedom from limiting...

How can you make your business or project a great bet for customers, staff, and investors?

Great people only need one thing in order to be great:

Time.

Investing in projects with average teams but lots of luck or media endorsements is unlikely to be a great long-term bet.

Investing in projects with a great team may doesn’t always pay off as quickly as you’d like, but it usually does pay off with a long enough timescale.

So the best...

What messes you around?

The first thought might be a particular employee. Or family member. Or market. Or project failure.

But of course, all of those are false.

“Who then is invincible? The one who cannot be upset by anything outside of their reasoned choice.” - Epictetus, Discourses, 1.18.21

We mess ourselves around by creating an environment in our minds where we think we can control things we can’t.

We can’t control those employees, family members, markets or...

Big changes are coming.

In one afternoon, I spoke to tech collaborations for two major shoe brands… to a million dollar ethereum mining facility… to huge new metaverse developments… to innovative education tech… to interviews for a bunch of exciting new hires…

Opportunity is everywhere. Even during global pandemics.

There’s always space in the market for something different, something special, something great.

There’s space for your ideas to thrive.

What are you waiting for?

What’s the path? Is there one?

It’s the same path as for everything else… remembering what’s in our control and what isn’t.

And all that’s truly in our control is our ability to choose.

The market can do all kinds of crazy stuff. So can employees, strategic partners, investors, industry trends, economies…

…requiring a certain customer response is the path to anxiety. As is requiring a certain employee to stay, or an industry to bend in your favour.

Requiring nothing...

Just go.

You have the idea, the ability and the resolve.

You could research more, deliberate more, ponder more, wait for the perfect moment more. Or you could Go.

Execution is the secret sauce people are looking for in their research notes. You only find it by taking action.

What are you waiting for?

Why did our experimental personal development project decide to explore web3?

Here’s the thing.

While the NFT market is crazy at the moment, and everyone has an opinion on whether they’re great or terrible… but they’re here right now.

It’s tricky to see it clearly in January 2022… But if you really look, you’ll see how they could potentially be instrumental in powering the future of rich experiences more complex and elaborate than what was possible before a fully decentralised...

What’s a ‘worthy valve’?

I just made it up - the concept I want to share with you has no name, so I gave it a name (despite not being very good at naming things!)

This is a one-way valve. It flows one of these two ways:

#1 Toward our work. In this case, we ask ourselves, “Am I worthy of this project or undertaking?” Here, we’re intimidated by the work and wonder whether or not we fit the assignment.

Popularity can only be controlled to a degree.

The market decides, and it doesn’t decide rationally.

POGs — small circular plastic discs with pictures on them — were popular in the 90s when kids had access to comics, virtual pets, video games, all sorts of things. Yet we enjoyed POGs so much that schools started banning them due to how disruptive they were.

Select NFT projects — ones that came out of nowhere with no roadmap or proof of work...

Got a great project you’re working on?

Daring to make is great. But it might be scary to share.

Perhaps because you don’t know if you can pull it off. Perhaps because you don’t know if others will think it’s crazy.

Daring to share is important too, it’s the first step toward shipping.

If you’re lucky, you won’t know if you can pull it off – that’s because you’re stretching yourself and doing work that will make you better.

And...

Somethings are easy to predict.

If you’re a CRO, optimising a website for conversions has patterns and rhymes based on audience data.

…and then there’s the absurd ideas that just hit the market right and skyrocket in performance despite not working yesterday.

If you’re an SEO, optimising an article for long-tail search terms has patterns and rhymes based on the trailing indicators of past work.

…and then there’s a term that hits the culture that you weren’t expecting, creating unreproducible...

What do you think of nonsense?

It could have more utility than you realise:

Cookies in the apartment complex foyer are nonsense. Yet they make visitors feel warm and a little more ‘at home’, which is the point.

Wearing full chef’s whites in a chain restaurant is nonsense. Yet it makes you feel like you’re being looked after by an expert who knows how to operate more than a microwave, which is the point.

Taking shoes off at the airport...