Cultivating a Culture of Challenge in Leadership
Being a leader can create a dangerous distortion field around you. – People will say they agree with you even if they don’t. – People will believe what you say even if they know better. You’re always subject to low-level anthropological phenomena. Your status and people’s fear and safety impulses can combine to bend the […]
Why Authenticity Can’t Be Automated
So, time for a harsh truth. If you need AI to generate your “content ideas” for you, you are a fraud. You are doing nothing more than bullshitting people. If someone is curious enough to gather some surface-level, maybe-or-maybe-not-accurate content about your subject matter, why wouldn’t they just use AI to generate it for themselves? […]
How External Insights Disrupt Internal Echo Chambers
One guaranteed way to dislodge groupthink—work with external third parties who engage with you as trusted partners. You need people who can have shared values and shared commitments without being part of the same collective trance. Obviously, I say this with a fair amount of self-interest. But that’s part of the point. Differing incentives are […]
Strategic Musings of a Twelve-Year-Old World Conqueror
When I was 12 years old, I had a strategy to achieve global domination. Quite literally. I was an extremely weird kid. The world is lucky I turned out to be kind and ethical. But there’s a lesson about “strategy” in this story. My childhood strategy was about 20 pages of notes on how I […]
The End of Comparative Success
What if we all understood that… – Your brags have nothing to do with my success and mine have nothing to do with yours? – Your assertions have nothing to do with my challenges, nor mine with yours? And what if we all acted accordingly? What if we all understood ourselves as having lots to […]
Clarifying Expectations Between Clients and Service Providers
When you engage external firms, you need clarity on why. Do you need outcomes or just task completion? Do you need extra time and hands, or do you need expertise? I’ve been on both sides of this equation, and friction around these expectations is a common source of frustration. Things we should normalize: – Service […]
Liberating Yourself from Algorithmic Dependence
Time for a hard truth: most of the tips and tricks you read regarding the algorithm of a social platform are magical thinking AT BEST. More often, they are charlatanism. People take advantage of your desire to make uncontrollable forces seem predictable and manageable. Because lack of control feels precarious and scary. They are also […]
The Invisible Ink
Being a ghost can be as scary and sad as seeing a ghost. To be a ghost, you have to die first. And as the story goes, you stick around because there’s something you left unresolved. So what about being a ghostwriter? There you are, dead for at least some of the time, haunting other […]
More Than Just a Thought
In business, an idea is more than “just an idea.” The word needs redefinition. Here’s a helpful, if not somewhat dense, way to look at it: An idea is the intersection point between your prioritized strategic intents, differentiated brand theses, and demonstrated evidence of delivery. And it only counts as an idea for ideas-led growth […]
Why Social Media Solutions Aren’t FDA Approved
Scenario 1: You see a pill on the floor at the grocery store. You pick it up and take it, right? It looks official enough. It must do something for someone. If you don’t take it, you might miss out. Besides, what if you’re sick and don’t know it? Scenario 2: You see a weird […]