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A good brand honors a group
Nike honors great athletes. Apple honors people who think different. Stripe honors people with high agency who value intellectual ambition, as well as economic and technological progress. Every good brand is built on honoring a group of people. Who is your group? What do they respect and value? What are you making that will honor,…
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When overdelivering fails
There’s a book entitled, “Overpromise and overdeliver.” The title is a good principle generally. As James Altucher explains, “Over-promise sets you apart from the people who under-promise. Over-deliver sets you apart from people who just delivered.” The principle breaks when overpromise or overdelivery puts you in a position to fail to deliver entirely. If it…
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New Material
My friend Hamza and I started a show entitled New Material. We discuss creativity and productivity, through the lenses of business and art. It’s been a great opportunity for me to learn firsthand the intricacies of recording and publishing a podcast. I’m not entirely unfamiliar with it—I developed, managed, and launched the first season of…
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Work arrangements can be flexible
My friend was the perfect candidate for a job opportunity. He already had the respect of the CEO and the team, a depth of familiarity with the company’s product, and his skills were perfect for the role. He would have gotten the job already, except he was in a different country that the company couldn’t…
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One good reason
When something is important, one good reason is enough to make it worth a try even if there are a dozen bad reasons. When you don’t see a path to success, one good reason is enough to make something worth giving up even if there are a dozen good reasons.
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Suits and the backlist
Over a decade ago, early in my career, I worked at an office in the Canadian Pacific Heritage Building in Toronto. I would often come across a film set with several iconic yellow New York City cabs in a quiet street nearby. I later found out it was the set of Suits. The first season…
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Over and over
“Every novelist spends their life writing the same story over and over,” Danielle Chelosky says in an interview with The Creative Independent. “My subject matter doesn’t vary so much from book to book. Just the surface does. The settings, etc. I tend to write the same book over and over, or at least, I take…
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Ignorance premium and the idiot index
When you want to do something and don’t know how to get it done, you’re going to have to pay whoever can do it for you. Let’s call it the ignorance premium. For example, if you want to eat a specific dish and you don’t know how to cook it, you will have to order…
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Open up about your problems
When Ryan Leslie lost his million dollar court case in 2013, the government froze his bank accounts. He found this out when his payment for a breakfast sandwich at his local bodega was declined. In order for him to feel like he could retain control of his finances, he started doing business through a decentralized…
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Be somebody else’s good luck
My friend Peter recently wrote about the power of reaching out to two contacts—former clients, industry friends, other agencies, old friends, investors, etc.—per week. It’s clear to him that this is one of the most valuable things he could be doing for his businesses. He writes, “The network that brings us leads, talent, knowledge, and…