Money comes naturally as the result of service It can feel counter-intuitive at first, but when a company focuses on service over revenue they likely earn even more money than if they had flipped that. Back in 1997 when Barnes & Noble seemed to be catching up to Amazon, Jeff Bezos gave a talk to his company to make sure they were focused on the right thing, saying in part:“Look, you know, it’s OK to be afraid, but don’t be afraid of our competitors, because they’re never going to send us any ...

Money comes naturally as the result of service It can feel counter-intuitive at first, but when a company focuses on service over revenue they likely earn even more money than if they had flipped that. Back in 1997 when Barnes & Noble seemed to be catching up to Amazon, Jeff Bezos gave a talk to his company to make sure they were focused on the right thing, saying in part:“Look, you know, it’s OK to be afraid, but don’t be afraid of our competitors, because they’re never going to send us any ...

We forget that we forget I do a lot of things to try to remember the things that I read and watch. Using a book as an example, I might write some blog posts about it, maybe share it on a podcast, and see quotes in my Readwise reviews. Even then, if I reread the book a few years later, tons of it will feel like brand new information. This idea was brought up to me again (because I forgot that I forgot about it) in a recent episode of the Founders podcast. The episode was focused on Steve Jobs ...

We forget that we forget I do a lot of things to try to remember the things that I read and watch. Using a book as an example, I might write some blog posts about it, maybe share it on a podcast, and see quotes in my Readwise reviews. Even then, if I reread the book a few years later, tons of it will feel like brand new information. This idea was brought up to me again (because I forgot that I forgot about it) in a recent episode of the Founders podcast. The episode was focused on Steve Jobs ...

Productivity versus activity An interesting article recently came out about Wells Fargo firing more than a dozen employees who were faking their work. From the article:“The staffers, all in the firm’s wealth- and investment-management unit, were “discharged after review of allegations involving simulation of keyboard activity creating impression of active work,” according to disclosures filed with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.“While those employees deserved to be fired, it make...

Productivity versus activity An interesting article recently came out about Wells Fargo firing more than a dozen employees who were faking their work. From the article:“The staffers, all in the firm’s wealth- and investment-management unit, were “discharged after review of allegations involving simulation of keyboard activity creating impression of active work,” according to disclosures filed with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.“While those employees deserved to be fired, it make...

Personalized advice coming from noreply I’ve shared my distain for emails coming from “noreply” many times on this blog. My general feeling is that if a company wants to reach out to send me information, they should be willing to accept an email response back from me to dig in deeper. If the content they sent to me isn’t important enough to be worthy of a response, then why send it in the first place? I’ve recently moved our GreenMellen CRM back to Pipedrive, and it’s a fantastic product. If ...

Personalized advice coming from noreply I’ve shared my distain for emails coming from “noreply” many times on this blog. My general feeling is that if a company wants to reach out to send me information, they should be willing to accept an email response back from me to dig in deeper. If the content they sent to me isn’t important enough to be worthy of a response, then why send it in the first place? I’ve recently moved our GreenMellen CRM back to Pipedrive, and it’s a fantastic product. If ...

Work-life balance versus simple tolerance Work-life balance is one of those things that can be interpreted in many different ways. Generally speaking, I find that balance not to be in a perfect 9-5, 50/50 kind of way, but in balancing the various parts of your life as needed. Last year I shared Rory Vaden’s thought on this, where he said:“Balance shouldn’t mean equal time spent on equal activities. Balance should mean appropriate time spent on critical priorities.”More specifically, I find th...

Work-life balance versus simple tolerance Work-life balance is one of those things that can be interpreted in many different ways. Generally speaking, I find that balance not to be in a perfect 9-5, 50/50 kind of way, but in balancing the various parts of your life as needed. Last year I shared Rory Vaden’s thought on this, where he said:“Balance shouldn’t mean equal time spent on equal activities. Balance should mean appropriate time spent on critical priorities.”More specifically, I find th...

Understanding doesn’t mean agreement Understanding can be a powerful thing. Whether it means understanding people on the other side of the political aisle or just sonder in general, more understanding leads to better outcomes for everyone. In the book “Crucial Conversations“, the authors offer a similar take, saying:“To keep ourselves from feeling like sellouts while exploring others’ paths—no matter how different or wrong they seem—remember we’re trying to understand their point of view, not...

Understanding doesn’t mean agreement Understanding can be a powerful thing. Whether it means understanding people on the other side of the political aisle or just sonder in general, more understanding leads to better outcomes for everyone. In the book “Crucial Conversations“, the authors offer a similar take, saying:“To keep ourselves from feeling like sellouts while exploring others’ paths—no matter how different or wrong they seem—remember we’re trying to understand their point of view, not...

Learning Line by Line One of the new apps that I’ve added to my morning routine is a very simple one called “LineByLine” (I say “app”, but I think it’s just that website – no mobile app). While Anki is fantastic for learning atomic pieces of data (countries, names, facts, etc), it’s not great for memorizing long pieces of text, and that’s where LineByLine comes in. If you want to remember a short speech, a poem, or some other bit of text, LineByLine helps walk you through it. Suppose, for exa...

Learning Line by Line One of the new apps that I’ve added to my morning routine is a very simple one called “LineByLine” (I say “app”, but I think it’s just that website – no mobile app). While Anki is fantastic for learning atomic pieces of data (countries, names, facts, etc), it’s not great for memorizing long pieces of text, and that’s where LineByLine comes in. If you want to remember a short speech, a poem, or some other bit of text, LineByLine helps walk you through it. Suppose, for exa...

The Simple Stick Of all of the things that Apple is known for, a major one is simplicity. It seems weird to say it, particularly when talking about complicated, powerful devices like iPhones and Macbooks, but everyone knows that it’s true. When compared to competing devices, Apple’s are almost always simpler to use. This wasn’t just due to luck — it was due in large part to Steve Jobs and his “simple stick”. I first heard about this in a recent episode of the Founders podcast, where they said...

The Simple Stick Of all of the things that Apple is known for, a major one is simplicity. It seems weird to say it, particularly when talking about complicated, powerful devices like iPhones and Macbooks, but everyone knows that it’s true. When compared to competing devices, Apple’s are almost always simpler to use. This wasn’t just due to luck — it was due in large part to Steve Jobs and his “simple stick”. I first heard about this in a recent episode of the Founders podcast, where they said...

The Sunday Summary: Brave browsing, experience, Beeper, and gratefulness In an effort to help me keep up with everything I post each week, here is my latest “Sunday Summary” of my posts from the week. Mon, June 3: A Brave new browser In an attempt to slowly de-Google my life, I’ve moved from Chrome to Brave for my daily browsing, and it was a pretty easy move. Tue, June 4: Do your years of experience matter? Having experience can be helpful, but it quickly becomes less helpful if you’re just ...

The Sunday Summary: Brave browsing, experience, Beeper, and gratefulness In an effort to help me keep up with everything I post each week, here is my latest “Sunday Summary” of my posts from the week. Mon, June 3: A Brave new browser In an attempt to slowly de-Google my life, I’ve moved from Chrome to Brave for my daily browsing, and it was a pretty easy move. Tue, June 4: Do your years of experience matter? Having experience can be helpful, but it quickly becomes less helpful if you’re just ...

Write about what you don’t know As you may know, I’m writing on here every day to try to help myself. I share these learnings in the hope that they’re of benefit to you as well, but they’re largely to help me unpack new ideas and concepts that I learn about. A recent episode of Adam Grant’s “ReThinking” podcast with guest Rebecca Solnit had some fascinating insights. When talking about writing, Rebecca said this:“I’ve always hated the advice of “Write what you know”, which puts a fence around...

Write about what you don’t know As you may know, I’m writing on here every day to try to help myself. I share these learnings in the hope that they’re of benefit to you as well, but they’re largely to help me unpack new ideas and concepts that I learn about. A recent episode of Adam Grant’s “ReThinking” podcast with guest Rebecca Solnit had some fascinating insights. When talking about writing, Rebecca said this:“I’ve always hated the advice of “Write what you know”, which puts a fence around...

It takes a lot of effort to look effortless We see it in all walks of life — people that make things look effortless. This could be someone giving a talk, an athlete, a musician, or any number of others. They all have one thing in common: they put in a lot of effort to make things look effortless. In a recent episode of the Founders podcast that was focused on Steve Jobs, they covered a bit about why his presentations were always so amazing. Part of it was the amazing products that they unvei...

It takes a lot of effort to look effortless We see it in all walks of life — people that make things look effortless. This could be someone giving a talk, an athlete, a musician, or any number of others. They all have one thing in common: they put in a lot of effort to make things look effortless. In a recent episode of the Founders podcast that was focused on Steve Jobs, they covered a bit about why his presentations were always so amazing. Part of it was the amazing products that they unvei...

The Sunday Summary: Line By Line, the Simple Stick, and forgetting that we forget In an effort to help me keep up with everything I post each week, here is my latest “Sunday Summary” of my posts from the week. Mon, June 10: Understanding doesn’t mean agreement “By taking steps to understand another person’s Path to Action, we aren’t promising that we’ll accept their point of view. We are promising to listen.” Tue, June 11: Learning Line by Line If you want to remember a short speech, a poem, ...

The Sunday Summary: Line By Line, the Simple Stick, and forgetting that we forget In an effort to help me keep up with everything I post each week, here is my latest “Sunday Summary” of my posts from the week. Mon, June 10: Understanding doesn’t mean agreement “By taking steps to understand another person’s Path to Action, we aren’t promising that we’ll accept their point of view. We are promising to listen.” Tue, June 11: Learning Line by Line If you want to remember a short speech, a poem, ...