Adam Fairhead
Having ideas to blog about every day isn’t a byproduct of having lots of ideas, but of having the commitment to showing up every day to engage in the act of writing those ideas.
Having financial freedom isn’t a byproduct of striking gold or winning big, but of having the commitment to showing up for the work over time while not spending it all.
Having lots of high-income skills isn’t a byproduct of hiding away reading books all day every...
Adam Fairhead
Time goals are almost always wrong.
Your 10 year goal is a never goal. No one knows what the world will be like in 10 years. It’s the same as putting something on your bucket list.
Your 12 month goal is an aspirational goal. One that wishes for life to be different, carries with it a bit of anxiety, and is too far out to really do something about.
Your 6 week goal is rarely set. The 12 month and...
Adam Fairhead
Not all who like your tweet tap Like. Sometimes, people just like it inside. Think of how many profiles you’ve enjoyed but didn’t tap Like on.
Not all who love your product checkout their cart. Sometimes, it’s for later, or they forgot to login, or they’re sharing gift ideas to relatives. Think of how many times you didn’t checkout and bought later on.
Not all signals can be taken at face value. Tech May feed you information, but it’s for...
Adam Fairhead
We hear a lot about the importance of persuasion skills in sales.
The land of silver-tongues and slick objection handling tricks would have you believe it’s essential for effective sales and profitable business.
But what’s better than persuasion skills? Having an offer that requires no persuasion. An opportunity so compelling that no persuasion skills are required nullifies the need for such persuasion skills. Which is great, because most of them are difficult to train, exhausting to executive, and ethically questionable.
...
Adam Fairhead
Sometimes things don’t go quite to plan.
You lined up everything just right… triple-checked every variable… but…
Wham.
It goes sideways.
Maybe because of something you missed. Maybe because of something someone else did without telling you. Maybe you still don’t know quite what happened.
These are really challenging times: “This shouldn’t have happened!” we cry.
But it did happen. It does happen. And it might happen again.
And that has to be OK.
The longer we hold onto “what...
Adam Fairhead
Things that feel hard aren’t necessarily hard…
They might just feel hard because of the inner-dialog associated with them…
“I’ll never grow an audience, look I posted something and no one cared”. You knew one post wasn’t going to cut it, but 10k might, so keep going.
“I’ll never find the right person for me, look at how badly that date went.” You knew you were unlikely to meet the right person tonight, so keep going.
“I’ll never get enough...
Adam Fairhead
This is our first Christmas with our baby boy.
And golly is it different (in a good way!)
We don’t sleep much right now, because he’s feeding every couple of hours. He’s growing strong, he’s fighting the obstacles he was born with, and the reward is more than worth the sacrifice.
We don’t leisurely eat our Christmas meals right now, because we have a precious little bundle who needs our constant attention. We get to enjoy our meals differently, and...
Adam Fairhead
Don’t decide to read more. Decide to read one page per day. Easy, sticky, and kind on yourself.
Don’t decide to ‘do social media’. Decide to engage 5 posts that interest you per day. Easy, sticky, and kind on yourself.
Don’t decide that you need to see results next month. Decide to stay the course for the next five years, taking small steps every day. Easy, sticky, and kind on yourself.
Don’t decide that you must act fast or things...
Adam Fairhead
Ever had a digital detox?
They’ve become really popular over the past 24 months.
And they stink.
FOMO doesn’t get fixed by hiding from the signals that bring our the worst in you. Addressing your insecurities so that you don’t have those reactions is the solution.
Comparison anxiety doesn’t get fixed by being removed of the opportunity to compare yourself. Only finding peace in who you are and what you’re doing can fix that.
Your addictive personality doesn’t get fixed...
Adam Fairhead
When you feel like your project is too hard,
Or the competition is too fierce,
Or the rules aren’t fair,
Take a look at some photos of Earth taken from space.
It’ll quickly remind you of how very small and insignificant our problems are.
We’re a spec on a spec for but a moment.
Live and create with that in mind.
Adam Fairhead
I’ve done this many times.
Perhaps you have too.
Maybe it’s a product that promised to save you time or money, but saved you neither (and had a refund policy that didn’t quite extend to the very day you realised this).
Maybe it’s a professional service that promised to take some work off your shoulders and create certain results for you, but was instead a glorified course-in-disguise with an airtight contract that leaves you hanging.
These things happen. Tedious, expensive...
Adam Fairhead
One of two things will happen:
Either this question can motivate the best version of yourself to show up each day…
Or it’ll haunt you about shortcomings you don’t feel like addressing in yourself just yet.
“Did you do your best?”
In your day, did you? In the project you just finished, did you? In your relationships this week, did you?
If you can look in the mirror and confidently say “Yes!” then be really proud of that, as this...
Adam Fairhead
A quick reminder for everyone creating and building:
When you’re on your deathbed, very few things will matter to you anymore.
Create, build and live with that in mind.
Adam Fairhead
When you ask AI a question, it gives you an answer.
Sometimes, we laugh at the answer.
“As if it could get that wrong! AI is so silly.”
Except it’s not silly.
It’s precisely what we asked for, in response to the level of precision and specificity we provided.
It’s not wrong or silly.
It’s simply lacking in direction from you.
If you’re a good leader and provide clear direction, humans and machines will know how to follow.
If you’re...
Adam Fairhead
I love making and selling things that people will love.
But I hate marketing.
Not because the act of connecting good people with great things that will benefit their lives for a fair price is a bad thing. It’s not.
And not because the desire to connect with good people and see their lives change positively is a bad thing, either. It’s not.
But because in my 17 years of marketing experience, I’ve resolved that most marketers tend to be...
Adam Fairhead
I love winter.
It’s not just winter seasonally…
It’s very much winter in the markets today.
Many things die in winter…
This winter killed most volatile asset speculation. It killed moonboi strategies for those who wish to flip for quick profits on frenetic or inflated floors. It killed a huge amount of transactional activity. It brought floor prices of most assets way, way down.
Many of these things will never recover to their former states.
And this is not a...
Adam Fairhead
Our development team love ‘tidy’…
They produce methodical, precise code, collaboratively with spatial context using orderly project management tools.
Our animation team does not love ‘tidy’…
They produce emorphous, evolving ideas, collaboratively in the face of shifting plots and market trends.
Put the developers into the toolkit of the animators, and they’ll see only chaos standing between them and the methodical, lean production.
Put the animators into the toolkit of the developers, and they’ll see only needless layers of complexity...
Adam Fairhead
Projects and companies are starting to promise “a community” around their work…
…but community is an incredibly loaded word. And one that’s not often used properly.
Getting people to check by in your Discord server to clear their updates and check if they missed anything isn’t community. If it was, every app on your phone is a community.
Having a Facebook Group where you periodically broadcast your wares to an anxious crowd isn’t community. If it was, every Shopping Network...
Adam Fairhead
We can thank AI’s developments for a better market and better practitioners:
AI can write decent copy. Good: that means decent copy is no longer acceptable, and a deeper understanding of the art and the reader is necessary.
AI can design decent graphics. Good: that means basic images with no reverence for audience nor design is no longer acceptable.
AI can even write code. Good: that means the simple problems are solved faster, leaving room for solving new ones while...
Adam Fairhead
What do death and quick money have in common?
They both focus on the end, not the adventure.
And it’s not a real adventure if you spent the whole time wishing it was over.
Adam Fairhead
Multi-tasking stinks.
We think it doesn’t because we watch our computers seemingly multi-task a great many things effectively…
…but computers don’t multi-task. They rapid single-task.
They’re digital, binary, either-or, one or the other. We’re not digital…we can attempt true multi-tasking in ways they can’t.
But we should take a leaf out of the book of machines:
Multi-tasking means constantly interrupting your focus between two or more activities, causing splintered attention and shallower thought.
Single-tasking means committing to resolving individual tasks...
Adam Fairhead
Creative work suffers from woke thought.
Creative work also suffers from conservative thought.
Contradiction and creativity live in harmony:
When everything fits neatly together, you’re doing jigsaws, not art. Nothing wrong with jigsaws - they can be fun to do - but the creative work is already done. Putting pieces in places that they don’t belong isn’t how jigsaws work.
When everything doesn’t fit, and you make something totally different that somehow reconciles opposing ideas, now you have an opportunity...
Adam Fairhead
The skills required to acquire resources aren’t the same skills required to retain resources.
Acquisition requires engaging opportunities, making opportunities, taking some risks, and a lot of action.
Retention requires the opposite… not engaging every opportunity, protecting downside, and a lot of patience.
The former without the latter results in exertion without security or freedom. The latter without the former results in less security or freedom.
Neither deserves a bad reputation. Both are valuable. Find your own balance and be...
Adam Fairhead
We used to worry a lot about rented land.
Customers who were on Facebook and not our email lists.
Websites powered by proprietary tools rather than open source ones.
Hey, I get it, I can spin up free open source sites and self-host email marketing platforms on cloud droplets too.
The thing is, this shouldn’t really be a consideration anymore.
People go where they want to go. Our decision should be whether or not we want to show up with...
Adam Fairhead
First, do it.
Doesn’t have to be perfect, but it has to be fast so you can get your feet wet, experience what it’s like, and acquire taste for what ‘great’ looks like.
Second, do it right.
This doesn’t have to be perfect either, but you have taste now, and so you can build something great while knowing what ‘great’ looks like.
Don’t feel bad for the first pass not being right. It’s the process of making things great.
And...
Adam Fairhead
Our baby might arrive today.
Or it might be tomorrow. Or it might be a few days from now.
Some things we can plan for, other things happen in their own timing.
And while we wish we have more control in the moment, the timing we get is beautiful, and we’re thankful for it afterwards.
This is also true of the projects we pursue.
Maybe there are some unknowns. Maybe there are some areas where timing is tense.
And maybe,...
Adam Fairhead
What do you optimise your work for?
Optimising for profit: This certainly has its benefits. But slashing salaries and sterilising the experience tends not to motivate people to do their best work.
Optimising for efficiency: This certainly has its benefits, too. But observing every colleague with a stopwatch in hand tends not to nurture exploration, discovery and breakthroughs.
Optimising for joy: This certainly gets forgotten. A lot. But it causes the very things that optimising for profit and efficiency are...
Adam Fairhead
Creators and entrepreneurs do a lot of chasing.
Goals, dreams, freedom, shiny objects.
But what do we truly own as a result of all that chasing?
Not the goals: they usually promise more than they deliver.
Not dreams: they were often accessible all along if we only looked.
Not freedom: that comes from within our minds, not from external stuff.
Sure, shiny objects: but they don’t stay shiny, and are lousy aspirations.
So it turns out that the chasing doesn’t...
Adam Fairhead
When you can do many things… how do you decide which to delegate?
Kezi and I were talking about this one today.
We delegate many things… but where are the lines? What are the ‘rules’? How can we be sure we’re delegating the right things and keeping hold of the right things?
The answer was illuminating.
It wasn’t based on what we were best at; just because we’re good at something, it doesn’t mean we should do it. It wasn’t based...
Adam Fairhead
Just because you’re good at something, it doesn’t mean you’re the only one who should do it. Marketers can hire marketers. Designers can hire designers. Parents can hire nannies. CEOs can hire CEOs.
Just because you’re bad at something, it doesn’t mean you should feel bad about it. Steve Jobs did alright for himself selling computers without knowing how to code. Steve Wozniak did alright for himself making computers he didn’t know how to sell.
Your skills don’t dictate your...
Adam Fairhead
Does a car that accelerates faster than other cars really go faster?
After all, the speed limits are the same, and gas stations still need visiting along the way. Not to mention how all that acceleration may cause you more visits there.
Similarly, the people and teams that accelerate fast and make noise get all the praise.
But people aren’t cars…
The best car for collecting groceries and taking the kids bowling isn’t the same car that makes all that...
I create a newsletter called GrowthCandy. Each issue shares one idea to help build and spread your work, delivered as a short comic. Fast to read. Easy to apply. Hard to forget!