Why People Follow Whoever Makes Them Feel Understood Read online → “ "Human desires are the steam which makes the social machine work." — Edward Bernays, Propaganda Communication Moves People, Part 1 of 2 In November 2024, I was in Aarhus for the Boye & Company conference. I've been going every year since around 2015. I got in around 10 pm on the train and checked into my hotel. Before I fell asleep, I flicked on the news to see how voting was going in the U.S. It was still only around 6 pm...
8 days ago • 11 min read
The Room Where the Answer Is One Degree Away “ "We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run." — Roy Amara It seems as if AI was supposed to have killed us by now, according to the internet. And yet here we are, still answering email and still waiting for someone to reply to the message we sent on Tuesday 😅. The noise got especially loud this month. Some of the people who build these systems said out loud that what they're...
15 days ago • 3 min read
The Room Where the Answer Is One Degree Away Read online → “ “What you’ve experienced is more compelling than what you learn second-hand.” — Morgan Housel, The Psychology of Money In 2022, TikTok creator Grace Africa arrived at VidCon with more than one million followers. Then she sat alone at her meet-and-greet. Not a shorter line than expected. No line. Zilch. Time reported that there wasn’t a single fan in sight. How does one million become zero? The easy answer is to blame the platform....
22 days ago • 9 min read
We Keep Saying AI Can't Replace Judgment. But Who Builds It? Read online → “ “If you want to garden, you have to bend down and touch the soil. Gardening is a practice. Not an idea.” — Thich Nhat Hanh When I started in sales, one of the most annoying parts of my job was figuring out how to get something from one country to another. Every quote meant finding the route, checking the transit time, finding the cost, and painstakingly pulling information from a bunch of different documents. I kept...
29 days ago • 9 min read
Writing and Thinking: Why the Page Comes First Read online → “ “At the beginning or end of each day, the Stoic sits down with his journal and reviews: what he did, what he thought, what could be improved.” — Ryan Holiday, The Daily Stoic I thought I knew what I wanted to say. Then I read the paragraph on my screen and thought, “That makes no sense.” So I leaned back in my chair and peeped out at the trees blowing in the wind. This has happened countless times over the past few months. I start...
about 1 month ago • 5 min read
Imposters vs Perfectionists Read online → “ "Our fear of people's opinions is a hidden epidemic and may be the single greatest constrictor of human potential." — Michael Gervais, The First Rule of Mastery I once sat down at a boardroom table wondering whether they were going to fire me for saying the wrong thing. I had been hired, specifically, because I knew the answer to the question they were about to ask. That was the arrangement. I was the reason the meeting was on the calendar. None of...
about 1 month ago • 7 min read
How to Reinvent Yourself (Stop Thinking, Start Testing) Read online → “ Internal clarity comes from external communication. If you want to understand yourself, you need to write and communicate and create publicly, constantly." — Jay Acunzo In May 1932, a woman climbed out of a plane in a field in Northern Ireland, and a farmer (who I only assume was bedazzled) asked her how far she had flown. "From America," she said. Amelia Earhart had just become the first woman to fly the Atlantic alone....
about 2 months ago • 11 min read
Become Known for Something. Just Don't Become It. Read online → “ "To know who you are is the greatest power of all." — Sherrilyn Kenyon and Dianna Love (Blood Trinity) In December 1893, Arthur Conan Doyle pushed Sherlock Holmes over a waterfall and killed him. He wrote to his mother that he was in the middle of the last Holmes story, "after which the gentleman vanishes never never to reappear. I am weary of his name." Doyle thought of himself as a historical novelist. Sherlock Holmes simply...
about 2 months ago • 9 min read
What AI Detection Is Quietly Doing to Your Judgment Read online → “ "Care about what other people think and you will always be their prisoner." — Lao Tzu In 1902, the French administration in Hanoi finished a modern sewer system, and the rats moved in. So the city offered a bounty. One cent per rat. Unsurprisingly, collecting dead rats turned out to be unpleasant work for everyone involved, so the administration simplified. Bring us the tail. We'll take your word for the rest. The tails came...
2 months ago • 9 min read