Archive of posts from July 2025

When hiring or being hired, it’s worth remembering:

• It’s harder to instil a good attitude, than to welcome someone who makes others smile.
• It’s harder to stop people from shooting others down, than to raise good people up.
• It’s harder to train a good team player, than to onboard someone onto a team.
• It’s harder to teach integrity, than to trust those who keep their word.
• It’s harder to teach humility, than to guide those willing to learn.
• It’s harder to temper an ego, than to empower grounded workers.
• It’s harder to nurture curiosity, than to leave people clues.

Work on your attitude more than your aptitude.

When lots of people play a game, but only a very small number of people win, that’s called a lottery.

Sports tournaments. Social media influence. Going viral. Lotteries.

If your work matters, try not to rely on winning the lottery.

Instead, try to build something so wonderful for those you serve, that they can’t not be thankful that you did.

If you go beyond what people consider to be normal, you get to stand out in a positive light among those you serve.

If you aren’t prepared to exhibit that unreasonable behavior, you’ll be normal, and blend in for those you serve.

There’s no right or wrong answer here. Just consequences of our actions.

Choose accordingly.

We’re drawn to the ease, the lack of tension, the yielding nature of those who have enough.

We’re wary of the hustle, the tightness, the blind resolve of those there because they want more.

Remember that before your next pitch, offer, sales call, presentation, or email.

Business is the continual act of letting go

• Of the feeling of being needed
• Of the tasks they rely on you for
• Of the revenue you just brought in
• Of the identity you built in your work

It’s fairly meditative in that way.

If we let it be.

If cutting costs on customer support saves a little bit of money…

Or changing your terms & conditions to grant you greater rights…

But you lose a customer in response, due to unfair terms or inadequate support…

What did you save?

Some want new technology to make their work easier.

Others want new technology to unlock harder tasks.

We all get to choose which path we want to take.

If a service strains your team, design things differently so it’s a joy to send and receive.

If a helicopter landing starts messy, it’ll end messy, so start the landing procedure again.

If you’re baking cookies and they taste all wrong, don’t add frosting, bake new cookies.

There’s a time for pushing ahead with what you have.

But there’s also a time for allowing yourself to start anew, no matter how deep you are.

Don’t stay the course if the course leads somewhere worse.

Doing my financial reports is a service. Adding a summary and personal note makes it a gift.

Making a marketing report is a service. Turning it into a comic book so I’ll understand and enjoy reading it makes it a gift.

Attending a Zoom call is a service. Attending a call with a Starbucks cup in your hand after sending a gift card to their inbox the day before so you can “get coffee together” makes it a gift.

Are you offering services, or giving gifts?

Demographics are data.

Psychographics are taste.

To truly understand your customer, you need both.

The job of a craftsman is to create great work.

The job of a leader is to help craftsmen create great work.

The job of a business is to create an environment where leaders can help craftsmen create great work.

Not many achieve any of these goals. Most settle for less. Not you.

“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” is so out-of-fashion these days.

Yet I’ve used:

• The same PM software for ~15 years
• The same design tools for 23 years
• The same text editor for 11 years
• The same terminal for 11 years
• The same web framework for 14 years
• The same email system for 20 years
• The same accounting tool for 13 years

If. It. Ain’t. Broke. Don’t. Fix. It.

There are so many things that deserve our time and attention to fix.

Fix those instead.

When everyone has features…

And everyone promises outcomes…

But everyone has a lacking/mediocre/abdicated user experience, desperate to be lower-touch with customers?

Which do you think is the area that’s going to make the biggest difference in your go-to-market?

If AI can create, why don’t we relate to it?

We relate to creativity because of the work, athe story behind the work, and the story we tell ourselves about that work.

Generated work has no stories.

That’s why it feels so hollow, sterile, and lacking in comparison.

They say a bad team will ruin your business.

But there’s something worse.

An average team.

A bad team will shut you down…

But an average team will keep you stuck for years.

They say you should sell the hole, not the drill…

But when it comes to buying a drill, you automatically think DeWalt, Milwaukee, Makita or Bosch.

You either to go Amazon to buy whatever drill is on sale, or you choose team Yellow/Red/Green/Blue and go to your preferred brand directly.

Don’t just sell the hole.

Be the drill they trust.

You may need attention, but you don’t need gross attention.

Folks are feeling increasingly interrupted/disrupted when on their screens.

It’s tiring.

No wonder people get addicted and have a growing resentment toward being online at all.

So if you’re going to join the noisy part of their screen time, be a safe haven. Make it worth their while. Be a salve. Be a small relief, something that makes them think, “Oh gosh, thank goodness I found something valuable and enjoyable, rather than just empty calories and hype”.

It’s okay when they don’t like or comment. They’re tired.

It’s okay when they don’t subscribe or click. They’re tired.

Just show up enough for them to notice the relief you’ve created. Something better, something for them. They’re tired, but they’ll be so thankful you did.

You’re only too late if you think you’re too late.

As that’s the point past which you won’t try.

Otherwise, it’s time to get started.

We need intrinsic motivation to come back.

Gaming the system for good grades, only to throw yourself into the market ill-equipped, means you’re a worse option than AI.

Leaning into education, going deeper than the questions require, understanding how to see around corners, means you enter the market as an invaluable resource.

Which is better, do you think?

I think we often forget that “the prospect” doesn’t have their ducks in a row as much as they’d like us to think they do.

They have overflowing inboxes with folders they used once but keep meaning to tidy up so they don’t lose messages.

They half-use a to-do list app to track priorities, and half-use their CRM to-dos function, with no proper visibility on what they’re doing.

They delay replying to emails that require emotional labor or hard thinking because there’s lots of easier things they could do today that pay the same.

They’ve got office politics where they aren’t sure if rocking the boat with Janine is a good idea today.

They’ve got stuff.

Their delays aren’t killing your sales…
Your feeble follow-up etiquette does.

A lack of patience does.
A lack of empathy does.
A lack of initiative does.

Remember they’re human. Just like you are.

Defining success as ‘getting to the finishing line’ is dangerous.

If the finishing line keeps moving until you die… then the real finishing line is your own death.

That’s a lousy thing to race toward.

Would it not be better to enjoy the process? Be present in the space between here and there? Enjoying the life we have, rather than wishing it away?

A lack of fear is a trailing indicator.

You’ll never find it in the forecast.

So waiting for it to show up before you act is lunacy.

Plan your next steps accordingly.

We don’t buy stuff because it’s logical, unless it’s unemotional.

Switching your home broadband provider because they double the price at 12mo, is logical.

Moving your ISA into a better rate vehicle for better returns, is logical.

But when logic leads, there’s no emotion, no loyalty, no stickiness, no enjoyment, no nothing. Just logic.

Is that the kind of product you want to sell?

Creating isn’t hard.

It’s only hard when you get stuck over-consuming, scrolling forever through empty-calorie nonsense on your little magic pocket-box of distractions and disappointment.

Ditch the magic pocket-box of disappointment.

Embrace the white page and the blinking cursor. The page and the paintbrush.

The magic pocket-box can’t compete with that.

Brains are very clever.

If you ask a brain for 100 reasons you can’t, it’ll give you them.

If you ask a brain for 100 reasons you can, it’ll give you them.

Ask your brain better questions.

“Build it and they will come!”

Hey. Bake an amazing cake and leave it on the kitchen table.

It won’t eat itself.

What flavor do people like? Where are they? When do they want it? In what portions, at what price? What’s the most enjoyable way for them to discover the wonders of your cakes in particular?

Moral of story: Cake is for eating. Eat cake. friends. Eat cake.

You’re only surrounded by competitors if you’re doing the same thing as everyone else, in the same way as everyone else, for the same people as everyone else, while sounding like everyone else.

But that’s an awful lot of copying to do.

Make it easy on yourself: Stand out, be different, offer something a specific person would really love, then focus.

Isn’t that better?

You’d think printing out your to-do list daily would be wasteful compared to just using your phone.

The opposite is true.

The printing route uses 10 grams of CO2 per year.

Using a phone for one hour a day uses 1.25 tonnes of CO2 per year.

Wild, isn’t it?

We all benefit from understanding the downstream repercussions of our actions. It highlights mind-bending opportunities you never would have thought were possible.

The ‘unread message’ count on your inbox only displays the number of things sent.
Not the number of conversations or relationships you’re letting wither.

The Likes and Comments counts on your social profile only displays database information.
Not the quality of your relationships or your community, which databases don’t know.

If it’s easy to track, it’s often not worth tracking.

If it’s hard to track, pay close attention.

A bigger screen means you can do more at once.
But does that help you do better work?

A newer phone means you can flick through apps faster.
But does that help you do better work?

A fancier pen means you can write with lovely ink.
But does that help you do better work?

Optimize for what you want. Not what you’re made to want.

The world runs on social media, yet social media makes everyone anxious.

Everything happens in a place nobody actually wants to be.

This is a problem.

For buyers and sellers, speakers and listeners.

We can hope for an exodus, but in the meantime, we have to be where our people are.

We can use the tools, but do so in ways that are healthy and safe.

For instance, I don’t have any of that stuff on my phone.

Heck, I don’t even carry a phone most of the time.

I go to it, it doesn’t come to me.

I use tools with intention, not reaction.

We must all find ways to engage those we serve without the means ruining the ends.

I’d love to hear ways you manage this. Mail me your current strategies, I’m all ears.