I wrote my career
LinkedIn comments are typically pretty banal. It’s not Twitter; you’re not going to find an army of bots trying to incite a riot. This is the first time in a while I’ve seen a comment that can justifiably be described as ‘profound’. You know, without smirking afterward. Peep Laja knows what he’s talking about. You […]
A lesson for content marketers and business owners
David Perell recently published ‘50 ideas that changed my life‘ by tweetstorm and on his website (link in the comments). Each and every one was gleaned from some other source. But David’s packaging was original. Each idea could have been the subject of multiple articles, books or even entire disciplines. Instead, he served his readers a […]
Tell your story
Your business has a story. And it’s up to you, and you alone, to tell it. If you don’t control the narrative, you’re relying on your customers to do it for you. A contact of mine, Sam Winsbury, knows this well. He ends his LinkedIn posts with #thatbrandingguy. If he hadn’t, and someone had asked me […]
What use is fasting in business?
When Siddhartha (in the novel of the same name), is asked by a merchant what he has to offer, he replies “I can think. I can wait. I can fast”. But what use is fasting? He replies “If, for example, Siddhartha hadn’t learned to fast, he would have to accept any kind of service before this […]
A Russell Conjugation
Named after Bertrand Russell (and revisited by Eric Weinstein in Edge and The Portal), a Russell Conjugation shows that by substituting words that are similar, we can change the perception of a sentence. At its essence, the idea is this: Words contain both fact and subjective emotion. Therefore, choice of words affect perception. Let’s start with a factual […]
Step By Step, Ferociously
One of Jeff Bezos’s favourite phrases is ‘Gradatim Ferociter’, which means ‘step by step, ferociously’. But what does that phrase really mean? Although best known for building Amazon, Bezos also owns Blue Origin, a company focused on space travel, and ‘Graditim Ferociter’ is the official motto. When you build a vehicle that will go into […]
Choose your own sacrifice
Sacrifice an animal to the gods and reap a bountiful harvest. Lose now to gain later – a conscious decision, with clear trade-offs, taken by many ancient civilisations. Fast-forward to today. We sacrifice daily for little gain, mostly without realising. We sacrifice time, and we sacrifice our happiness on jobs we don’t like, for people we don’t respect, […]
Champagne Ideas and Lemonade Pockets
I typically find most of my quotes from the world of business, personal growth and philosophy. It’s a rare occasion that I end up quoting anyone from the world of football, but that’s what I’m doing today. “Champagne ideas and lemonade pockets” was how Colchester chairman Robbie Cowling described other chairmen with ambitious, but unrealistic […]
Why marketing agencies suck at marketing themselves
Marketing agencies are notoriously poor at marketing themselves. These are the reasons I hear most often: “We spend all our time on our clients, so our business has to take a backseat” “We don’t want to come across too ‘braggy’” “Are you kidding? We’re just trying to keep the lights on right now!” But even […]
A Student and a Teacher
You may have just started on your journey, or you may have been at it a while. Whatever stage you’re at, I can tell you this: there are people ahead of you, and there are people behind you. That means that there are people who have figured out more than you have and have made […]