How to Create a Personal AI Operating System Read online → “ AI systems are like savants. They need stable structures and narrow worlds. — David Epstein A chef walks into a kitchen. Before they touch a single ingredient, they do something most home cooks skip entirely. They set up their station. Knives here. Mise-en-place bowls there. Proteins prepped, aromatics diced, sauces within arm's reach. Dan Charnas calls this the chef's "external brain" — a system that "concretizes thinking before...
15 days ago • 8 min read
The AI Skills Audit: What to Build, What to Automate, and What to Never Let Go Read online → “ Tools get replaced. Vision and agency do not. — Dan Koe The most dangerous person in any industry right now isn't the 25-year-old who grew up on AI. It's the 40-year-old with 20 years of pattern recognition who finally sat down and asked: "Which of my skills should AI never touch?" That question — not which tool to buy, not which prompt to master — is the one that separates leaders who get faster...
22 days ago • 10 min read
Building a Body of Work (Not Just a Resume) Read online → “ Your personal brand is your reputation. And your reputation in perpetuity is the foundation of your career. — Gary Vaynerchuk “When you look back at the body of work you’ve built and the people you have impacted, what do you want to see?” Todd Henry asks that question in The Daily Creative. I sat back in my chair, gazed out of the window into the treetops, and sighed. I didn’t have an answer. The truth is that for most of my career,...
29 days ago • 9 min read
The Visibility Framework: How Invisible Experts Become Industry Voices Read online → “ Forget about ‘creating a brand for yourself.’ Instead focus on being a good person, doing good work, and showing up on time. Your brand will follow. — George Tannenbaum There's a scene in The Dark Knight where the Joker, dressed as a nurse of all things, sits across from Harvey Dent in a hospital room. Half his face paint is smeared off as he says, "Nobody panics when things go according to plan." That...
about 1 month ago • 8 min read
How to Be Visible Without Being Cringe (A Framework for People Who Hate Self-Promotion) Read online → “ Imposter syndrome is other people thinking you’re good, but you don’t believe it yourself. Reverse imposter syndrome is knowing you are good, but others don’t see it from the outside. — Wes Kao Brian here 👋🏾, this one is a bit late this week, because, well, I was a bit too efficient and thought I scheduled this way ahead of time 🤦🏽♂️. Thanks to one of my readers, Chris, for giving me a...
about 1 month ago • 7 min read
The AI Hype Trap: Why Your AI Tools Aren't Working Read online → “ There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all. — Peter Drucker I'm still a big believer that humanity still has a huge advantage over AI. There've been countless discussions about AI taking jobs, and it will, but at least for now, nothing can replace the expertise that you've accumulated over the years. BCG recently found that AI success is 10% algorithms, 20% technology, and 70% people...
about 2 months ago • 9 min read
The Clarity Crisis: Why Busy People Accomplish Nothing Read online → “ Productivity is about “knowing what you want to do, intending to do it, and doing what you wanted to do.” — Laura Mae Martin It’s Friday at 4 pm. You look at your calendar for the week. Back-to-back meetings Monday through Thursday. Slack threads answered. Emails cleared. A dozen small fires extinguished. You were busy every single hour. But when you try to name what you actually built this week — crickets. In 2009, Paul...
about 2 months ago • 9 min read
The Real Truth about the OODA Loop Read online → “ If you want to understand something, take it to the extremes or examine its opposites. — John Boyd In 1961, a brash Air Force officer at Nellis Air Force Base had a standing bet. He'd start any simulated dogfight from a position of disadvantage — the other pilot on his tail — and win within 40 seconds. Every time. His name was John Boyd. Pilots called him "40-Second Boyd." He never lost. The interesting thing is that Boyd wasn't the fastest...
2 months ago • 10 min read
What Will Leaders Actually Do When AI Handles Everything Else? “ “The function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers.” — Ralph Nader Read Online → How Leadership Evolved Over 25 Years (And Why It’s About to Shift Again) I started my career in the mid-2000s. I’ve watched leadership change a lot since then. I was lucky — I didn’t have a command-and-conquer boss when I was starting out. But I could see that style everywhere around me. The leaders who hoarded information....
2 months ago • 12 min read