business

The precedence of comfort

In the absence of critical analysis, comfort takes precedence over anything else. Without a long-term approach, without delaying gratification in the now for better results in the future, humanity always defaults towards comfort. Comfort can mean different things, but the tangible basics are the same. At some level, it involves basic human needs, but it doesn’t stop there. It starts with the necessities of survival like food and shelter, and it spans a massive spectrum of needs and wants until it ends with things like feeling important or being special. There isn’t anything intrinsically wrong with comfort. I’d argue that a huge part of a productive, practical life is forging towards new levels of comfort for you and your family.… 

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Good attempts

If a fellow in a ‘97 Civic challenges a dude in a ‘20 Porsche to a race, we’re not going to blame him for the loss. Getting to sixty miles an hour in a 1997 Honda Civic takes about 9.6 seconds. The 2020 Porsche GT3 RS takes around 2.9 seconds.

In this case, we don’t critique the loss. We critique the attempt. A terrible Civic driver who dumps the clutch and gives up with a pout before even finishing the run? Not worth our accolades.

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Loud, brash, and bold

Loud, brash, bold – it’s the sort of thing that can dazzle you. Whether it’s a client, a boss, a colleague, or a competitor, the pure speed and amount of activity is intimidating. Fast-talking conversations, two phones ringing at all times, sending hundreds of emails per day, until you feel like you’re in a live-action retelling of Uncut Gems.

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Stop sending me Calendly links

If you do not know someone — if you haven’t established a working relationship with them — you should never send them a Calendly link.

For those of you who don’t know what Calendly is, let’s break down how it works. It’s basically a link to someone’s schedule, and they’ll have a list of open slots where you can reserve a half-hour or so of their time for a meeting.

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Nothing smells rotten in the state of Denmark

It’s August.

Reports say New York City has lost or is going to lose nearly one-third of its small businesses.

The $3,000 to $4,000 per month that over 33 million people are claiming from unemployment has just ended…for now.

1 million new unemployment claims are being filed each week.

Logistics companies lost 33% of their revenue in the past quarter. Entire industries like travel and hospitality have essentially flatlined.

By all accounts, something very bad is happening or is on the cusp of happening.

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Failure disguised as caution

I knew a girl in college who was paralyzed by fear. She’d see a fire truck drive by and start worrying that her dorm was on fire. She’d hear about a robbery and ask people to walk her to her car. She’d study for weeks for mid-terms and literally shake in fear as she was leaving them, thinking she’d missed some crucial question. She would use hand sanitizer every few minutes.

Abby was a very bright girl. She got a good job and ended up with a great life. But despite a healthy intellect and marketable skills, she was fighting an uphill battle of risk avoidance. She was afraid of something — anything — going wrong. It’s hard to blame her. A lot of things go wrong.

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the thin liquid line

In a crisis, there is a very thin line between crashing and soaring.

Sometimes it’s the industry itself, and that’s not the fault of the company. No airline or hotel business model exactly thrives in a global lockdown.

But outside those specific hammered industries, you can look around at other industries: businesses in the same field either seeing record profits or going flat broke.

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universal basic mug

Money helps people.

Due to many factors – decreased violence, technological advancements, increased education, charitable aid, foreign investment – the amount of poverty in the developing world has decreased drastically over the past few decades. In 1990, over 36% of the world’s population lived in extreme poverty. By 2015, that figure was under 10%.

Regardless of how the folks got the money, having it is clearly positive.

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marketing gurus and backwards ball caps

I have a blanket policy of turning down all sales meetings.

The tricky part comes when you don’t know it’s a sales meeting.

We’d recently announced that Discosloth was hiring. I was looking for a paid search specialist, and it took me a few months to find the right fit. Those few months brought an onslaught of inquiries and emails and phone calls – people looking for a job, people trying to sell outsourcing services, people selling software.

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