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A surprising experience
Some people love surprises. Others hate surprises. Clearly we have a distinction between types of people… Wrong! We have a distinction between types of surprises. A surprise is a deviation from what was expected. When reality deviates from our expectations our dopamine system trains us. If the deviation from expectation resulted in something better than […]
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Lining up a heap of masks
My gym drew a line. Wearing masks is compulsory. Unless you don’t feel like it. That’s not exactly what the message they broadcast through the speakers says. They actually say that wearing a mask is compulsory unless you’re doing vigorous exercise. The problem is that they thought they drew a line in the sand, but […]
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Ringing in the rituals
What is a ritual? What’s it for? The graduation ceremony. An engagement ring. An 18th birthday party. What are they for? In our culture rituals are often used to mark a change of state. You were a student, and now you’re qualified. You were single, and now you’re betrothed. You were a minor, and now […]
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How To Achieve The Greatest Victory.
Often we have big dreams for tomorrow, dreams of the things we want to do in this world, of the people we will become. We may even have the aptitude and the skill. And yet somehow there seem to be periods where we make little progress. What happens? What gets in the way? Almost all […]
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The Job Of a Founder Is “Recipe Discovery”
“If you personally want to grow as fast as your company, you have to give away your job every couple months.” Molly Graham If we begin solving any new puzzle in our companies with the intention that we’re going to give that job away in 3 months, then we set about solving it differently. We […]
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[Growth] is the meaning and the purpose of [Business], the whole aim and end of [Startup] existence
Life is easier when we have a North Star. These rules / maxims / mental models / values, call them what we will, switch us into system 1 thinking and free us from analysis paralysis. When we encounter a hard problem, we reach into our bad of cognitive rules, pull out the appropriate one and […]