32
Today I turn 32 years old.
Every year I write an article with stories, ideas, rules of thumb, anecdotes and ponderous items from the last year.
This is number 10 of those articles.
See: 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31.
Before I get into it, a few updates.
I’m getting married at the end of the year to my sensational fiancé Georgia. Planning is going well. It’s fun to throw a big party for all your closet loved ones.
We made the hard decision as a family to move our Dad into a nursing home. He has Parkinson’s and Dementia and what my Mum and my brothers could offer in terms of care wasn’t enough. The staff at the nursing home are outstanding but the problem of getting into one is tough. If it ever comes to this for one of your loved ones, I’d recommend finding a good broker. We did and we all agreed we should’ve spoken to one sooner.
The hardest part?
Not seeing my Dad at home whenever I go over to say hello.
Ahhhh life.
Finally, my brother and I are having fun working on Nutrify. Stayed tuned for version 2.0 coming soon.
For more current updates, see my now page.
Overall it’s been an adventurous year.
Here’s to 33.
1. Never hurt the helpful animal
For every message in a fairytale, there’s an opposite message.
Fight evil gets balanced with ignore evil.
Slow and steady gets balanced with take the leap.
The law of complementary opposites.
However, one message dances alone.
Never hurt the helpful animal.
Because the helpful animal is you.
The voice in your head, the feeling in your stomach.
The invisible force guiding you to the right path.
Hurt the helpful animal and you hurt yourself.
2. There’s always more than two options
Dilemmas are fun.
They simplify things.
One thing or the other.
You can do up the pros and cons list of each.
Option 1 or option 2.
But obviously option 3, 4, 5, 6, 7... 113, 114, 115 exist.
Hell, it could even be option 1 and option 2.
Let’s try the crazy thing and the thing we know that’s worked in the past.
When you’re stuck weighing up two options, it’s helpful to remember the words and and neither exist.
3. Acres of Diamonds
Akira the Don is one of my favourite artists.
He remixes snippets of thought provoking speeches and stories with custom electronic music and vocals.
One came on shuffle the other day called Acres of Diamonds.
I enjoyed the remix and looked up the original speech by Earl Nightingale.
I haven’t been able to get the saying out of my head since.
Acres of diamonds.
The speech is a story about a man who wanted to join the diamond rush in Africa.
So he sold his farm and moved to Africa to look for diamonds.
He didn’t find any and ended up throwing himself in a river.
But the person who bought the man’s farm one day found a rough diamond out in the field.
It turns out, the man’s farm contained acres of diamonds he was unaware of.
The lesson?
How many treasures lay dormant under our feet without us noticing?
Perhaps you are already standing on acres of diamonds, all you have to do is change your perspective.
There are no boring opportunities or businesses or jobs or lifestyles.
Only boring perspectives.
Change your view and who knows, perhaps you’ll find your acres of diamonds.
4. Benchmarking is for losers
Compare yourself or your business to another and you automatically limit yourself.
If they are the best in the world, you can aim to reach there but if they’re any good, by the time you get there they’ll be onto the next thing.
If you’re happy to be a player on the field, benchmarking is table stakes, the entry point.
If you want to stand out, strategy is a more creative play.
Strategy is a risk.
But there is no outsized reward without risk.
Reach the benchmarks and you might get a slice of the pie.
Create a winning strategy and you get to make the pie.
Hat tip: Benchmarking is for losers by Roger Martin.
5. Marketing does not abide by normal distributions
If Elon walks into a football stadium, the average net worth of everyone goes up by millions.
If the tallest person in the world walks into a football stadium, the average height hardly changes.
The first is an example of a power law.
The richest person can have many many many times more wealth than the average.
The second scenario, is an example of the bell curve or normal distribution.
Even the tallest person in the world is at most twice the height of the average (and even this is a stretch).
Marketing is in the world of wealth distribution.
A single ad or video can provide 80% (or more) of your engagement returns.
The problem is, you won’t know which.
The same with any form of creative endeavour.
The solution?
- Create by default - make things, products, advertisements, content, art, firstly for fun and curiosity, secondly for income.
- 80/20 split - 80% of the things might be known to work, the tried path. 20% of the things might be complete experiments, “this might not work” type of things.
The first ensures consistency. The only controllable variable.
The second opens you to serendipity, perhaps the most powerful force in the universe.
6. Products can be improved psychologically as much as they can be improved physically
Taxis and Uber provide very much the same service.
You request a ride and it shows up.
Except Uber provided a map to show you where the car was.
I remember before Uber my friends and I would call a taxi late at night and they would say 45 minutes and those 45 minutes felt like we were lost in the wilderness.
Now the anxiety of knowing if your ride was going to show up or not goes away, you can see the car coming towards you on the map.
The product of taxis didn’t change much physically, Uber’s innovations were psychological as much as they were technical.
My car stops its engine at traffic lights to save fuel.
When I got it, I found this feature quite annoying.
I’d been used to my old car running the whole time and the engine being ready to go.
Then I noticed when the engine stopped, a small fuel tank appeared on the dash with a counter showing how much fuel had been saved.
I watched the counter go up drip by drip.
The counter won me over.
Without the counter, the same psychical process happens, you stop and the engine goes off to save fuel.
With the counter, now I can see the fuel being saved.
In my home city of Brisbane, they are building a new rail system at an estimated cost of ~$6 billion AUD (though this will likely go up).
The new rail system is expected to save commuters 10-20 minutes in travel time.
Building a new rail system is a big physical undertaking.
But I can’t help but wonder how it would be if they spent 10% of the funds making the trip more enjoyable.
Making the trip more enjoyable is a psychological point of view.
Perhaps people wouldn’t mind travelling a little longer if the trains were nicer?
Hat tip: Much of this perspective has evolved from listening to talks by Rory Sutherland.
7. The win bet takes the edge off
Zero or one.
It’s simple.
In any endeavour, the win bet is the simplest.
But the trick is you can define winning.
Want to write an article but don’t know where it’s supposed to go?
Sit down and write for 25 minutes.
See what happens.
That’s what I’m doing right now.
Ha!
A single task.
As best I can.
That’s the win bet.
Win at the thing you’re doing right now.
The simplest choice you can make in any given moment.
Is to focus on one thing at a time.
One single thing.
One simple thing.
As best you can.
Note: Yes I know this contradicts with point 2 (there’s always more than two points) but part of the fun of life is bouncing between different points of view.
8. The risk of failure is purely psychological
Is the downside really that bad?
You tried a new business and it didn’t work.
You made some songs and they didn’t turn you into a pop star.
You wanted to lose 5kg in 3 months and lost 3kg instead.
Who cares?
You gave it a shot.
What’s the name of your great great grandfather?
Or great great grandmother?
Kudos if you know.
I don’t know mine.
It goes to show, in a 100 years or so, hardly anyone will know your name.
Daunting?
Nah...
Exciting.
It means you can dance in the circle.
Whatever circle you want.
You can hold hands with the girl you fancy. She might hold yours back. She might not.
You can call that person you’ve been thinking about.
The downsides are fabrications of the mind.
Besides absolute ruin, all failure is psychological.
And you’re smart enough tough enough bold enough not to give into that crap.
Give it a crack my son.
The spirits of the universe are behind you.
Your great great grandparents would be proud you’re giving it a shot.
Do it for the dead.
One day you’ll be there too.
Cheering on the next and the next and next.
9. The need for the new will fade with the ability to absorb the now
I’m guilty.
Refreshing YouTube, refreshing podcasts...
Hell, who am I kidding.
Mostly refreshing YouTube.
YouTube is where I get podcasts now.
Anyway...
I’m guilty of craving the new.
That sweet thumb down on the YouTube app and I get a world of new.
It got me.
I got addicted to the sweet sweet nectar of the new.
I knew it though...
Step one is always know your addictions.
My addiction is to always have some kind of YouTube in my ears.
I’m working on it...
Cooking?
YouTube in my ears.
Eating?
YouTube in my ears.
Going for a walk?
YouTube in my ears.
A five minute drive?
YouTube in my ears.
Christ!
Even writing this down, I see my faults.
My poor poor ears... they need a break.
My brain needs a break.
This last week, I gave them a break.
Less YouTube in my ears.
But what if there’s a video I miss?
C’mon Daniel... what good is an extra video at the expense of the present?
Ho ho!
You’ve caught me...
I know I know.
This week, a little less.
Cooking last night went well, no YouTube in my ears.
Just the food and the utensils and my calm mind.
Incredible how it works.
Make the win bet.
One thing at a time.
One thing as best as you can.
I understand.
I’m practicing.
I’m going to be the best in the world at doing one thing.
At absorbing the now.
Yes yes yes, I’ve got this.
10. The interface is the product
I heard a tech talk or a podcast where someone said the interface is the product.
As in, for a computer, most customers will buy what it looks and feels like rather than all of the zeros and ones going on behind the scenes.
Even for me, someone who likes to program, I buy computers because of the looks and feel.
Of course, performance comes into play but only if the performance looks good.
How many times have you heard someone buy something because it looks cute?
Despite offering no other practical benefit.
Cute is a sales angle as much as performance.
I like writing words as much as I like how they look on a page.
How do the sentences link together?
What does the text look like?
Yes, utility is important.
But the eyes are faster than the mind.
What you see either sparks interest to investigate further or not.
I like Macs because of the interface.
My PC is half Windows half Linux (Ubuntu).
I avoid the Windows setup at all costs.
A personal preference yes, but also, once you’ve used a Mac or Linux, Windows feels clunky.
When you go to a blog and the text is cluttered with ads, how enticing is it to read?
The quality of your product depends on how beautifully you can package utility into an interface.
...or make it cute.
11. Do so much volume it would be unreasonable for you to be unsuccessful
A simple recipe for success: sets and reps.
Like going to the gym.
Easy to overcomplicate with the latest trends and workout flavours of the month.
But any long-term gym goer will tell you the only real differential is consistency over time.
This process relates to almost anything.
Choose something.
Ignore the BS and opinions of others.
Do so many sets and reps of it, a gambler would take the bet on you.
Yes yes yes I know...
There are no guarantees my friend.
But you can stack the deck in your favour.
Tell me you’re going to get good at something for the next three years.
Then do it.
Practicing every day.
Day by day.
Set by set.
Rep by rep.
I’d back you.
12. Academic results do not equal leadership skills
Three guys I went to school with.
Two guys got poor academic results.
Not fit for the system.
One built skills in welding and bus building.
The other built skills in sales.
The first runs a team of 60 building buses for public transport.
Last year they built 300 buses at $1 million per bus.
The second got into real estate, worked his way up, now runs his own team of agents.
His team got the second highest sales in the state in their first year in business.
The third guy I went to school with was the smartest by far.
Smarter than me.
Top 5 in the whole school for any subject.
His assignments were the envy of the class.
He graduated with top grades.
Then spent the next 10 years in and out of university. Completed multiple degrees while bouncing between unrelated jobs.
I saw him the other day and his energy seemed as though he hadn’t yet stumbled upon the break he’s looking for.
And so the two with poor academic results are now running successful teams in their industry.
While the one with excellent grades is still getting excellent grades but having trouble transferring those skills to the real world.
All are valid paths.
And I’m sure the academic will find his break eventually.
But it’s a pattern I’ve noticed.
You don’t need good grades to be a leader.
You need balls.
You need to be able to make a decision without a set of criteria to follow.
School has a criteria sheet for getting good grades.
Real life has no such criteria.
Most people hate uncertainty.
Fair.
So they look up to people who can make decisions in spite of uncertainty.
Academic skills don’t guarantee this ability.
Of course, nor does lack of academic skills.
But don’t assume that because someone can ace a test, that they can lead you into the unknown.
13. To learn something set a goal and move towards it
The question “what do I need to learn to do X?” can have an infinite number of answers.
And too many options paralyses.
This is what happens to first year university students when the options are to study anything and everything.
A much more efficient method is to choose something specific you want to do.
And learn whatever is needed to move closer to it.
Things you need to learn will reveal themselves naturally.
I watched a documentary the other day about a team of archeologists who learned to scuba dive because the tomb they wanted to explore was under water.
How many beginner archeologists courses teach scuba diving as one of the fundamentals?
Instead, they set the goal of exploring the tomb and later discovered it required going underwater.
So they learned whatever was necessary to do so.
You can do the same with whatever project you choose.
Write it down.
My project is X and I’m going to learn whatever is required to complete it.
14. Believing you’re lucky is helpful
Something that has helped me immensely is believing I’m lucky.
Even if it’s not true.
Even if there’s no way I can prove it.
I just believe it.
I believe when I go on walks I’m going to run into the people I need to.
I believe when I create something it’s going to reach the people it needs to.
I believe if I set my mind to something, I’ll be able to do it.
I believe if I’m in alignment with the helpful animal inside me, the whole universe will get behind me.
Can I prove it?
Nope.
Does it help?
It feels like it does.
15. Every story in 5 parts
If trying to tell a story.
Write these headlines down.
And fill in the space between.
- Situation - What’s the starting point?
- Desire - What does the character want?
- Conflict - What gets in the way?
- Change - What happens that shifts something?
- Result - How does it end?
Hat tip: The only 5 lines you need to tell any story by Tim Runia.
16. The garden at the hospital
My Dad was in hospital for three months at the start of the year.
The nurses were fantastic.
But hospitals are grim.
Fluorescent lights, sterile surfaces.
All setup for optimized care.
I couldn’t help but wonder whether the patients might react differently if there was more natural light or spaces to walk.
Visiting every two or three days I’d notice the same patients there.
Most of them didn’t move for their entire stay except to and from the bathroom.
And you know what happens to a puddle of water when it doesn’t move.
I’d take my Dad for walks around the hallways. Five laps up and back.
And when it wasn’t too hot we’d go for walks outside.
Slow walks.
But we’d always stop by the flower patches near the entrance.
They weren’t very big but my Dad liked to look at them.
A touch of colour, a sign of life, a little bit of beauty.
Aside from one of the family visiting, I think looking at the garden was one of his favourite things during that time.
After a few minutes we’d walk back to the room back to the grey walls with the overhead lights.
We’ll go for another walk when I’m back next, I’d say.
I’d like that, he said.
Then I’d leave and glance at the garden on my way back to the car.
It was one of my favourite things too.
17. There’s always something in the box
One of the best combos you can have is a talking skill with a hard skill.
The engineer who can communicate their ideas.
The doctor who breaks down medical terms in ways her patients can understand.
I’ve built much of my business on communicating technical ideas in a simple way.
Of course, this takes many hours of practice.
And I could always do better.
But if I get stuck, I steal an idea from a book called Improv Wisdom.
Improv is short for improvisation.
By the name of it, you’d think it’s something you couldn’t practice.
But it is.
Almost everything is something you can practice.
Improv helps you think on your feet.
A skill required by all communicators.
Even in writing.
Yes, you can edit.
But you still need ideas for the first draft.
The trick?
There’s always something in the box.
What box?
The box.
Imagine there’s a box.
A box in front of you. Your idea box.
And whenever you open it, there’s always something in it.
Something?
Yes.
Something. Anything.
My box?
This morning, fireworks, a tattoo gun, a scented candle and a container of vanilla syrup.
Magic ingredients for the next adventure.
What’s next?
Who knows.
That’s the fun part.
Open the box again and find out.
18. Points or progress?
I like feeling smart.
When I argue with people, I always want to be right.
I often walk away and think of something important and cringe and think dammit I wish I thought of that in the moment.
Does it help?
Sure.
It helps my ego.
Sometimes it’s useful.
It helps me realise where I stand on topics.
But winning an argument, scoring points against someone else doesn’t always lead to progress.
And so the question I use to restrain my default argumentative self is:
Points or progress?
Am I in this argument to score points?
Or am I in this argument to make progress with the person I’m talking to?
Often the two don’t line up.
Progress doesn’t require me to score argumentative points.
The best outcome of an argument is to improve all parties positions.
Rather than improve one at the expense of another.
19. Have fun with it
Fun is the win bet.
The universe is far more playful than it is purposeful.
Why do you hang out with anyone?
Because it’s fun.
Fun is my highest priority.
Even above love.
It’s far easier to love something (or someone) that’s fun.
20. The leverage of compliments
A compliment often delivers far more value to the recipient than it takes the giver.
I like your outfit, you’ve got great style.
Those seven words and a letter might ring in someone’s ears for the rest of the day.
Even the next time they look through their closet, those words might perk them up.
Hell, I’ve lived whole months on the tailwinds of a good compliment.
And so if you like getting compliments, chances are someone else will too.
Some will snark at the idea of shallow compliments.
Screw them.
Who are they to decide what someone will find shallow or not?
A compliment is a compliment.
Be sincere in the delivery.
Delivery often matters far more than actual words.
Give away one compliment a day.
With the best energy you can.
Watch your world change.
21. Audentes fortuna iuvat
Fortune favours the bold.
But fortune also favours the prepared.
Fortuna paratos favet.
And to be prepared is to be bold.
22. Practice until it becomes impossible for you to do it wrong
Efforts that appear as magic are often many many hours of practice in disguise.
I had to present at a pitch night a couple of months ago.
The time slot was three minutes.
A few weeks prior to the pitch night, the presenter asked if anyone wanted to practice presenting their materials.
I put my hand up to go first.
I hadn’t look at my notes in weeks.
But I trusted myself to be able to make something of it.
And from my own perspective, I respect anyone who has the courage to go first.
So I assume other people are the same.
And even if they aren’t?
Haha!
No matter, the show must go on.
The first round was okay.
Perhaps a 4/10.
Not a complete train wreck.
But not quite par either.
No matter.
The feedback and suggestions rolled in.
What beautiful gifts!
Over the next four weeks, I sharpened my notes, fixed the slides, made them fun (most important), added a story.
For a live talk, my minimum practice is an hour for every minute.
In reality, I would’ve doubled it maybe tripled it.
Sets and reps.
I’d put the camera on and practice the whole thing, end to end.
Only three minutes.
But sometimes it’s easier to talk longer than it is shorter.
The first 10 rounds sucked.
I made mistakes and spoke too long on certain parts and missed different sections.
By the twentieth round, I knew it off by heart.
On the pitch night, I was the only one to talk without notes.
We didn’t win, other teams’ ideas were more appealing than ours.
But many people came up to me after and said your presentation was the best.
The compliments were nice.
Not as good as the deep satisfaction of knowing you gave your all.
On the night, that was the one variable I could’ve controlled.
Did I practice the talk enough so much so I couldn’t get it wrong?
Of course, there’s always the chance I’d screw up the talk.
Hell, I fumbled answering one of the judges questions.
My answer was probably 3/10.
No matter.
Now I know what to practice more for next time.
Perfection?
Unnecessary.
Maximum effort where you can?
Necessary.
23. Use agents, don’t lose your agency
Over the past couple of years, there has been a rise in computer programs known as AI (Artificial Intelligence) agents.
These AI agents, commonly known as ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and DeepSeek (there are many more but I’m leaving them out for brevity) can write entire essays for you in under 10 seconds.
They can write 100s of lines of code with a single line of instruction.
Some of them can make short movies.
And images that look so real you can’t distinguish them from actual images.
But the best writers know more words isn’t the point.
And the best software engineers know lines of code isn’t the bottleneck.
Video makers and painters don’t need endless streams of film and images.
All artists know output isn’t the bottleneck.
The right output is.
As strange as it sounds, the point of writing an essay is as much the chance to think through a problem as it is to end with several pages of text others can pursue.
Writing is thinking.
Programming is thinking.
Creating art is connecting the spiritual to the physical.
Building a bridge between heaven and Earth.
The engineers of the Bugatti Veyron didn’t need vibe coding.
Nor did Picasso have an endless image generator.
They set a goal and moved towards it.
Yes, AI agents can do incredible things in breakneck speed.
However, they all lack the unique human trait of agency.
They lack a problem unless given one.
Will this change in the future?
Perhaps.
But not anytime soon.
So yes, use AI agents to perform tasks they are helpful for.
Though don’t let your agency wane, your ability to think and act through problems on your own accord.
Like a muscle, agency is something that needs to be exercised.
24. Most critics have never actually shipped or built anything themselves
I am guilty of this.
Someone or a company makes something.
And my brain floods with ideas of what’s wrong with it or how I would’ve done it better.
What a sucker.
Zero skin in the game.
Once you start to make things, anything.
You realise how hard it can be to make something really good.
Yes, critiques can be valuable if they lead to potential improvement of the overall system.
But if you’re worried about what someone will say of your efforts...
Take quick note as to whether they’ve done the actual thing you’re trying to do.
If not...
Ignore.
Take note of how fighters treat each other after fights.
Despite being covered in blood and wanting to kill each other seconds earlier, the best ones shake hands and embrace each other.
Fighter recognizes fighter.
While the crowd scream and shout how one should’ve kicked the other more or gotten up faster from the ground.
Yet notice where these cries come from.
From a safe distance outside the arena.
25. Action kills anxiety
A walk outside, writing down your thoughts and ideas, researching the next steps, an hour on your most important project, 20 pushups, sprinting through a field.
If the anxiety creatures are crawling in, know they are allergic to action.
Movement is the cure.
If the next steps are unclear, let action reveal them.
26. Boredom is your friend
In the connected modern world, being able to be bored is a skill.
If you want to, you never have to be bored again.
But being able to be bored is giving yourself a chance to listen.
To listen to your clearest and truest thoughts and ideas.
What comes up when there’s no input?
Perhaps a solution to a problem.
Perhaps a new way of looking at something.
Perhaps a totally different life path.
Perhaps nothing but a bit of peace and quiet.
Boredom, like hunger, tunes the senses to the primal.
If you can handle boredom or be okay with being hungry for a while.
Hoho my son!
That is one powerful combo.
27. A closer look
I wake up and walk onto the balcony.
We’re staying in a cabin on a hill.
I look around.
Two birds on the edge of a tree wrestling and singing, a lizard crawling over the rocks its tail shadow etched by the morning sun, spiders weaving webs between the grass, hundreds of them, ants crawling along the fence line carrying whatever it is they’re carrying, hundreds of them, a third bird jumping between red bottlebrushes figuring out which is best, flowers stretching their petals after a night of rest, hundreds of them, a leaf sails down from a tree tracing the final arc of its circle of life, butterflies flap their wings at a terrific clip as if it were their only day on Earth, with each closer look I discover more magnificent goings on than I count, hundreds of them.
I wonder if they think the same as me.
A man walks outside sits down inhales the morning fog and starts watching the symphony of the day unfold.
How lucky am I to be part of the show?
I hope to get many more days like this.
Hundreds of them.
I read this story to my fiancé.
And she gets goosebumps.
Hundreds of them.
28. Assume you have it
The law of reverse effort states the more you try the less you get.
Think about trying to get a coin at the back of the couch.
The more you try the further the coin falls.
Or when trying to fall asleep at night.
Try to fall asleep and you can’t.
Let yourself fall asleep and you do.
When someone asks you to pass the salt at dinner, what do you do?
You pick up the salt and pass it to them.
You don’t step through the motions.
Of hearing the sound waves coming out of the person’s mouth.
Converting the sound to language.
Identifying the instructions.
Translating the instructions to mechanical movements of your arm.
Of course, all of these happen.
But they happen automatically.
You can use this same approach for anything.
Any goal.
Any desire.
Assume you already have it.
Go to sleep feeling you already have it.
Not pretending it’s there.
Feeling it’s there.
Let the required actions emerge from your subconscious.
Your goal becomes the same voice as someone asking you to pass the salt.
Actions toward it become effortless.
The entire universe gets behind you.
No rush.
The subconscious never rushes.
How beautiful!
The most fun you can ever have.
To be both an observer and a dancer in the grand show.
You can start today.
Substitute your list of goals for a list of assumptions.
Now every time you read them, read them aloud, asking yourself to pass the salt.
29. It can be done
On a recent trip I heard a streak of inspiring stories.
A team of 1500 men digging through a mountain with picks and shovels to build a train line, some of the tunnels over a hundred metres long, some of the cuttings with a sheer 200m high drop.
A lady making dresses out of banana peel and pineapple fibres because she didn’t want to use plastic.
An Irishman moving across the world then across the country, changing jobs, starting businesses, raising a family, coaching kids football teams.
A wife taking care of a terminally ill husband.
Nothing gets closer to bringing me to tears.
Than seeing someone (or a group of people) doing their best.
Inspiration is contagious.
Whatever it is.
You never know who’ll catch on.
30. It’s not about the money it’s about the energy
At dinner I noticed the restaurant host offer a series of alternative restaurants close by to a group of six people who’d just sat down.
They’d expressed their distaste of the current options on the menu and expressed their desire to make significant changes.
One of the ladies was the thick glasses type.
The kind of person who would walk into almost any establishment and look for a problem to point out.
And look, their desires are fine.
And the host respected them.
But offered two nearby restaurants as alternatives.
The guests said thank you and got up to leave.
The host came over to my fiancé and I and I said, no luck?
He said yes, we could figure it out but some people aren’t worth the effort.
She did look hard to please, I said.
Yeah, and a full table is always good. But it’s not about the money, it’s about the energy. He said. It doesn’t happen often but hey, there’s plenty of other places around.
Sure some places might offer anyone and everyone something to eat no matter their request.
But you’ve got to draw the line somewhere.
Without it, your experience blends into everywhere else.
The best hosts not only serve those who say yes, they choose who to say no to.
It’s brave to offer a product.
It’s even braver to say, sorry it’s not for you.
31. Leaving reviews
If word of mouth is the best form of marketing, in the modern world, leaving a review is one of the best ways to help an establishment.
A review pops up in a search field.
Even if a digital review is worth 10% of a real life review, if the digital review gets viewed 1000 times, that’s like telling 10 people.
Not all reviews need to be positive either.
Perhaps a nice trick might be to praise specifically and publicly but criticise behind the scenes.
The first time, send an email, write it down or talk to a manager instead of a public review, the second time, go somewhere else.
Those good reviews you read were written by someone having an experience like you.
Leaving your own is a form of paying it forward.
32. The forgotten magic
Of all the talk of business and money and financials and policy and law and careers and shareholders and markets and returns and gains and losses.
It helps to remember the most magic of it all.
The ability to create life.
How we all got here.
Of all the things I’ve done and will ever do, the one I’m most excited about is becoming a father.
33. Create outside, edit inside
Never underestimate ceiling height.
For your most creative ideas, you need to have a clear shot to the heavens, a line of sight to connect yourself to the cosmos.
Once you’ve received the message and written it down, head into the cave or the lab and close the door to edit it down and refine it.
Christ returned to the divine outside on the cross.
Then went into the cave to reinvent himself.
34. Love yourself
Because life’s better when you do.
Say it three times.
C’mon.
I’ll do it too.
I love you. I love you. I love you.
35. One thing I failed at
I applied to be part of the Don’t Die Certified team with Brian Johnson.
I wrote a short application and a longer planning document of what I’d implement as part of the team.
But I didn’t get a reply.
Perhaps I should’ve followed up.
I still agree with most of the points in the document.
Maybe writing the document was the purpose of the application.
Just like writing the essay itself is often the reward rather than the finished piece.
Hat tips
A few people whose works I’ve enjoyed and admired this year.
In no specific order.
- Sean McClure - Excellent writings on complexity, decision making, nature, life in general.
- Vicky Boykis - Sensational writings on tech, data science and how they intersect with real-world problems.
- Akira the Don - Countless songs and soundtracks remixing speakers from all over, many of which inspired points in this article.
- Rory Sutherland - A joy to listen to on everything from marketing and advertising to public transport systems. Search his name on YouTube and go down the rabbit hole.
- LindyMan (Paul Skallas) - Newsletters I look forward to reading with points from history clashing with modern day ideas and themes.
- Becca Farsace - Tech reviews I look forward to watching.
- Samuel Nam - A fellow Aussie who’s tech reviews always make laugh.
- Joan Westenberg - Essays, video and text, about topics I find hard to describe in a handful of words, which to me my default means they’re good.