Archive of posts from December 2025

The little details often matter more than the big details.

Such as answering a customer’s email quickly, confirming you saw it and are going to look into it for them.

On the surface, it seems to add nothing. You don’t have the answer yet.

But emotionally, it seems to add everything. You made them feel seen, important, prioritized.

Little details.

Advice I received years ago that I still think about when good opportunities come along:

“If you don’t do it, someone half as good and half as nice will.”

Sometimes bad news comes your way, on a phone call, out of seemingly nowhere.

It was supposed to be one way, and now it isn’t.

Better than cursing it, I figure the better path is to remember that hardship is the tax we pay for living.

Isn’t that a tax we should br glad to have the opportunity to pay?

Would we want it any other way?

If your favorite blogger likes something, you don’t have to like it too.

If your favorite influencer does something, you don’t have to do it too.

If your favorite thought-leader hates something, you don’t have to hate it too.

You’re allowed to take the parts you like, and remix them into your own thing, that poses new questions for us all to ponder.

Echo chambers call it heresy.

The rest of the world calls it art.

If we’re told to be on social media a lot…

And social media has a demonstratively negative affect on our mood…

And that the way to win social media is to produce more, reply more, go live more, more, more…

And we go along with that?

Then we’re electing to pursue guaranteed misery, coupled with whatever upsides we may find along the way.

Is that the best strategy to follow?

Aren’t others worth pursuing first?

My son played with his trains practically all day today.

As he rolls Thomas and friends along the tracks, he recites the words from his favorite episodes, mixing his favorite lines together to form a story of his own based on what tickles his fancy.

Small, simple objects that light up his imagination, create new storylines, and exercise his creativity.

We should all have small, simple objects in our lives that do that to us, no matter our age.

Christmas is usually thought of as a time to celebrate, to cheer, to sing, to eat lots, to do everything you might usually do but… louder.

I find Christmas to be more enjoyable when it’s a time to rest, to appreciate, to feel peace, to hold your closest ones close, to do everything you might usually do but… quietly.

The world’s only getting louder and more sensational.

Seize opportunities to enjoy peace and quiet.

If your plan is to out-produce your competitors, AI will likely beat you.

If your plan is to make something different, something special, something we’d miss if you were to stop, you’ll likely have a long fruitful road ahead of you.

Productivity is for machines. They’re good at knocking down tasks, and being measured by the number of tasks knocked down.

Effectiveness is for human. They’re good at seeing things that aren’t there, and being measured by using creativity to change it.

Do you want to be good at being human, or good at being a machine?

My phone has four icons on it.

Messages, Maps, Photos, Camera.

For when my wife needs to message me, for when I get lost, for when I’ve taken a photo and didn’t have my camera with me, and for seeing those photos so I can get them off my phone.

The rest?

It can wait.

The best part is, even this feels like more functionality than I need in my pocket at all times.

The time and focus gained from not having silly, empty distractions tempting me all day, every day, really adds up.

Worth thinking about next time you consider a doom-scroll session in your favorite time-wasting app?

The funny thing about having the “fear of missing out”…
…is that it’s poses the wrong question.

If you focus on your social feed, you’ll miss out on who’s in the room.

If you focus on who’s in the room, you’ll miss out on your social feed.

There will always be “missing out”.

But the “fear of” part tends to lead to bad decisions, resulting in you missing the things you’ll regret missing after the moment.

Instead of fearing missing out, choose to miss out on the right things.

Algorithms exist where there’s too much information coming at you at once.
And so the machine filters it for you.

Email and RSS don’t have this problem.
Because there, you choose the information that comes to you.

Sources worth reading. Sources recommended to you because the were worth making a remark about.

Not because it upset the most people and achieved the most views.

Simply because it was worth sharing.

Isn’t that a better place to spend your time? In feeds of things like that?

Attention is not “shout about what we do louder or more frequently or with more persuasive words” anymore.

Not in mature markets. Not when competition is already doing that. “Like them, but louder” isn’t a resilient strategy.

The attention those people won’t get that way, is the kind that keeps you at the top of their minds as the first choice for when they move in-market. The kind that has them recommend you even if they haven’t worked with you, because of your contribution and conduct. The kind that makes them say “I’ll check back on them, I’m interested to see what they do next”.

The kind that keeps people in-pool, and lets them deplatform to engage in their own timing.

“Louder” disbands the pool.

A website is not a silo.

It is a baby-step in a much larger experience.

People don’t sit basking in your site for days. They go there because it serves a purpose in a broader narrative.

Make it beautiful (to them), make it so valuable they’re confused by how valuable it is (for them), make it so good they tell the others.

But it’s not 2010 anymore. There’s a whole ecosystem around your site, and if it’s built without fully appreciating that ecosystem, it’s not going to work very well. The best sites know this.

Don’t build pages. Build chapters in a larger story.

SEO isn’t about keywords anymore.

The best traffic sources don’t barter for cross-links.

The best traffic sources don’t respond to broken-link emails.

The best traffic sources cover remarkable experiences and/or resources that contribute meaningfully to their own audience’s lives.

Perhaps that should be the focus.

Perhaps that should have always been the focus.

Proposal documents are guessing.

Blueprints are knowing.

A good proposal tells you what a vendor thinks you want, without due-diligence nor an appreciation for how the work fits into a larger system. A blueprint is what your audience wants, that anyone who has the blueprint can build.

Build the blueprint to their appetite and the proposal comes along for the ride, while being built to solve problems, rather than to merely close a deal.

If you got into your industry for more than closing deals, to make a difference, consider building blueprints, not proposals.

Internet does not have a content shortage problem.

It has an experience worth telling the others about problem.

AI is racing the former to the bottom.

It’s not a race you can win.

It’s not a race you want to win.

Play the better game.

Managers create environments where yesterday’s work gets done faster today.

Leaders create environments where today’s problems get solved tomorrow.

Both matter. Know which one you’re being.

Discretionary effort is worth twice to us than required effort.

If Delivery Driver A delivers your parcel, fine.

If Delivery Driver B delivers your parcel, smiles, then tells you to have a great day…

Given the choice between the two?

You would choose the second one, every single time.

All else being equal, a smile and a few words — that cost zero — changed everything.

Exciting to think how far you can take this.

If you make a product or service…

When you optimize for ‘Better’, you take the long approach… trading good today, for great tomorrow.

When you optimize for ‘More’, you take the short approach… trading great tomorrow, for good today.

There’s a distinct lack of ‘Better’ out there.

Because everyone is busy chasing ‘More’.

The extra mile has very little traffic.

What if you didn’t go to meetings, didn’t watch TV, and didn’t casually consume social media content?

How many hours would that give you?

What would you do with them?

Then what would happen?

Can you cut some of those things out, to get that?

There are failures where you were generous, but it didn’t pay off.

There are failures where you were selfish, and you burned bridges.

Fail in the second way too many times, you’re out of the game.

Fail in the first way too many times, you succeed.

So fail generously, often.

We could get attached to the outcome.

We could get obsessed with it needing to be good.

Or we could simply commit an amount of time each day, toward doing the thing.

Writing books? Write every day. You don’t have to be good, you just have to write. Because good writing comes from writing.

Creating art? Draw every day. You don’t have to be good, you just have to draw. Because good drawings comes from drawing.

Singer? Sing every day. You don’t have to be good, you just have to sing. Because good singers comes from singing.

If only there was a pattern to all this.

Don’t hire a coach because you don’t have answers.

Hire a coach because you don’t have questions.

Coaching is a useful vehicle when you have an incomplete jigsaw in your head, with no box art, and need someone who’s good at jigsaws.

“Automation is smart!”

Sometimes. Not always.

Some of it just annoys recipients, and you know it: because it annoys you too.

Automated phone calls are efficient, but nobody prefers hearing it.

Automated AI live chat is efficient, but nobody prefers talking to it.

Automated generated ad creative is efficient, but nobody prefers seeing it it.

Why not, instead, optimize for things people prefer? Things they’d miss, if you stopped?

Isn’t that better?

What do you need to let go of for your next chapter?

Here’s a hint:

If the answer is “Nothing”

The real answer is “Control of everything, all the time”

A lot of people seem to suggest that using AI is practically necessary at this point.

But we have two choices.

Option 1:

• Deeply care about those you serve
• Build habits in ideas, craft, discipline
• Wrestle with blank canvases daily, learn to love it
• Produce very unique, thoughtful things people would miss if you were gone

Option 2:

• Pay $20 to not use your brain
• Let your skills atrophy / never build the skills
• Be like everyone else, with no original thought, a mere contributor to the noise

Tricky decision?

When it comes to bad clients, bad opportunities and bad recruits…

Stop.

Especially when it costs you revenue and/or comfort to stop.

Because those are scenarios that will hurtle you, first-class, straight into a brick wall.

We used to know the names of the bands we liked.

We used to know the names of the songs they made, and how those songs went.

One of the dangers of streaming music is we don’t know much anymore.

Our ears are satiated, with an unlimited amount of everything you could hope to hear,

Some made by humans we never know the name of, others from artificial intelligence that has no name,

And when we turn it off, there’s no connection. No memory. No bond. No time wasted looking at album covers, reading discography, or meeting other fans.

Just more sound waiting for us.

It’s certainly more efficient.

But is it better?

If it’s not either a gift (something they want that they didn’t ask for),

Or help (something they want that they did ask for),

Why send it to someone?

Imposter syndrome is a nice name for “I’m thinking about myself too much’ syndrome.”

Focus on making great work, and ship it.

If it’s great, they’ll tell the others.