If you have enough at the top of your interest funnel, you don’t need to be very effective at conversion to seem successful at the other end of the funnel. And so, a billion people visit Wiki… | Continue reading
A new ice-cream shop opened up downtown. Do you want to go? Every word in that sentence is easy to understand. We know that a ‘new ice cream shop’ is a bit like the other ice cream shop… | Continue reading
When you build a building, it stays around for a long time. When you invest and staff a factory, it's something significant, and it lasts. When Heinz gets shelf space at the supermarket, the s… | Continue reading
Peace might not mean getting everyone else to do what you want them to do. Instead, it might involve understanding that people don’t always want what we want and don’t often believe wha… | Continue reading
As soon as competitive people start to measure something, there’s pressure to make it better. And once better reaches the maximum level, it’s optimal. But perhaps that’s not reall… | Continue reading
Not just travel agents, but all agents. Information scarcity is disappearing. Forty years ago, passengers didn’t know which airline flew where and when. And forty years ago, airlines had no e… | Continue reading
Is popular the same as good? Is popular possible? Is popular your goal? There are tens of thousands of humans spending their days trying to be popular on Instagram, buying outfits, wearing hats and… | Continue reading
Is popular the same as good? Is popular possible? Is popular your goal? There are tens of thousands of humans spending their days trying to be popular on Instagram, buying outfits, wearing hats and… | Continue reading
“How was your day?” It’s tempting to answer with just one word. “Fine.” The same way we try to lump a job, a project or a person into a single emotion. As if thereR… | Continue reading
Conventional wisdom: Find a large group of people. Explain why you’re better. Prove that you are the right answer. Done. How it actually works: Earn attention from precisely the right … | Continue reading
Good specs force the difficult conversations to happen before they are expensive. If you hand a good spec to a builder or a programmer, the chances that you get back the system you’re hoping … | Continue reading
Many of the ones I know are terrible listeners. They don’t actively engage, don’t see the people who are right in front of them, and don’t exercise much in the way of curiosity or… | Continue reading
What if today, just for today, we didn’t settle? What if we saw precisely the change we sought to make and sacrificed to make that change? What if we set aside urgencies and focused simply on… | Continue reading
They’re not very good at hiding. If you see an elephant in the room, it’s possible that other people do too. The best way to get it to leave is to simply mention that it’s there. | Continue reading
If you want to please someone with a gift, it’s unlikely that you’ll succeed by buying them a pretty good version of the item in question, even if it’s a great value. Better, the … | Continue reading
That’s a warning sign. So is, “I don’t know how it would fail.” In the first case, you haven’t thought deeply enough (or don’t have enough experience) to imagine… | Continue reading
Modernity has caused us to care more about convenience than just about anything. We’ll trade privacy or agency or our ethical standards simply to save a few clicks. That’s a shame. It&#… | Continue reading
When there were gatekeepers, the gap was smaller. People who knew that they could create fame were careful (often) to bestow it on things and people that they believed had something to offer. As th… | Continue reading
It’s possible that the author has a different upbringing than you do. It’s possible that the example on the screen doesn’t match your experience. It’s possible that you don&… | Continue reading
Leaving (and the perceived threat of leaving) is a powerful negotiation tactic. When the customer/partner/citizen could bolt at any moment, we act differently. Street vendors know that the prospect… | Continue reading
Leaving (and the perceived threat of leaving) is a powerful negotiation tactic. When the customer/partner/citizen could bolt at any moment, we act differently. Street vendors know that the prospect… | Continue reading
Before you make a big decision, walk around the block. If it’s raining out, take the dog for a run. End the meeting a few minutes early and go for a stroll with the team. Instead of an aftern… | Continue reading
Because sometimes, showing up in person makes the difference. Public workshops and talks that might be near you in 2020: In May, I’ll be in Melbourne, Sydney, Auckland and Singapore. Coming to Hels… | Continue reading
Because sometimes, showing up in person makes the difference. Public workshops and talks that might be near you in 2020: In May, I’ll be in Melbourne, Sydney, Auckland and Singapore. Coming to Hels… | Continue reading
It’s a choice because you’re on this path by choice. And it’s a choice because the act of being irritated involves the story we tell ourselves. People are rarely irritated by grav… | Continue reading
It’s not that they are buttons. It’s that they’re hot. They’re hot because they get pressed all the time. They’re hot because they’re seductive. It’s an ea… | Continue reading
On the top of many apartment buildings (and on a hill in many towns) you’ll find a water tower, a large wooden or metal container holding tons of water. Why bother? It turns out that a pump t… | Continue reading
The economics are compelling. Start a movie studio, a record label or a book publisher that only markets hits. No clunkers. No filler. Simply the hits. Easier than it sounds. Why doesn’t a mu… | Continue reading
It’s not that they are buttons. It’s that they’re hot. They’re hot because they get pressed all the time. They’re hot because they’re seductive. It’s an ea… | Continue reading
The math is compelling. You’re going to lose most of the competitions you enter. How could it be any other way? With a hundred or a thousand or a billion people completing, only one wins. Whi… | Continue reading
I’ve heard from people who have theorized that Tesla’s window-breaking launch of the super-brutal pickup truck was either an intentional fail (look at all the publicity they got!) or a … | Continue reading
When someone tells you what you need to hear, instead of what you’re hoping to hear, you’ve found something priceless. This takes care, generosity and guts to achieve. When you offer th… | Continue reading
It’s all happening at once, and we have to choose. What to read, listen to, answer? A spam from a Nigerian prince An @ mention on Slack A voice mail from the boss An email from a customer A D… | Continue reading
The flawed theory is that A+ students become good leaders. There’s no reason to think that this should be true. Doing well on tests, paying attention to what’s being asked, being dilige… | Continue reading
Start Finishing by Charlie Gilkey Beginner’s Pluck by Liz Forkin Bohannon Stillness is the Key by Ryan Holiday Change the World by Jacqueline Novogratz The Power Broker (audio) by Robert Caro Ignor… | Continue reading
When things get difficult, is your instinct to invest the effort to make it better, or to set a trap so it all gets worse? Because if things get worse, well, then you won’t have to deal with … | Continue reading
When things get difficult, is your instinct to invest the effort to make it better, or to set a trap so it all gets worse? Because if things get worse, well, then you won’t have to deal with … | Continue reading
The gap between mobile and desktop is: [shift] ENTER When one is typing on a laptop, the assumption is that you’ll keep going with your thought until you push ‘send’ or ‘pub… | Continue reading
Perfect is the enemy of good. Of course it is. But that simple sentence becomes more urgent when we realize that nothing (and no one) is perfect. How could it be? And so, if your hero, your cause, … | Continue reading
Perfect is the enemy of good. Of course it is. But that simple sentence becomes more urgent when we realize that nothing (and no one) is perfect. How could it be? And so, if your hero, your cause, … | Continue reading
It’s my favorite holiday for a good reason: It doesn’t matter what country, what culture or what background you come from… Gratitude works. Gratitude scales. Gratitude creates a p… | Continue reading
We have the opportunity to expend the maximum effort on behalf of a worthy goal. And we also have the choice to mindfully accept whatever happens next. Acceptance is a choice in the service of our … | Continue reading
The first rule of cross-examination at trial is that you never ask a question that you don’t already know the answer to. Inquiry has a place. Inquiry in the pursuit of science, of discovery a… | Continue reading
Every golf scorecard has a map of the course on the back. Moving the hole placement is a big deal, accompanied by meetings and oversight. A big shift is whether or not it rained last week. On the o… | Continue reading
Small business is a resilient backbone of the modern world. Choosing to not simply be the day laborer or the gig worker, but someone who actually owns something. You might own a permission asset… | Continue reading
A friend reached out because she’s thinking of using Kickstarter to fund her new book. That conversation led to a discussion about what Kickstarter is actually good at and how to use it. It t… | Continue reading
We have far more than five senses, and people communicate with us using many of them. You can receive a message via visual inputs, sound, text, smell, taste, touch, temperature, pheromones, sub-son… | Continue reading
Actually, there are two. The first is the tax we each pay so that companies can bid against each other to buy traffic from Google. Because their revenue model is (cleverly) built on both direct mar… | Continue reading