There comes a point in time when all business compete for the same thing: sameness.
It shouldn’t be this way, because competing to be the best at what everyone else does leads to mediocrity. On today’s episode we discuss how to escape mediocrity; not mindlessly pursue it.…
How can your organization avoid stagnation and future proof itself?
In his book, Red Team: How to Succeed by Thinking Like the Enemy, Micah Zenko tells the story of the CIA’s Red Cell group, devoted to “alternative analysis,” which includes techniques like “what ifs,” Team A/Team B exercises, and premortem analysis, all of which are used to identify holes in a plan, model an adversary to understand their weaknesses, or consider all of the conceivable ways a plan can fail beforehand.…
On this week’s episode we chat with my friend, and fellow Generalist, Arnold Beekes about being a Generalist and how to thrive in a society full of specialists. We need to cultivate more curiosity in people!
I came to use the word “Generalist” after knowing Arnold, and have previously written about it at length (here, here, here, here).
The benefit of cultivating a Generalist mindset is huge, and is widely considered a trait of innovators because new problems require new perspectives and approaches. The best leaders are pattern thinkers because they are always learning, that is what a Generalist brings to the table: an ability to connect the dots in new ways. …
No matter what you do for a living, should you do the best work possible? An interesting article by Nick Bilton on taking pride of ones work caught my attention:…
What’s good and what’s crap? Why do celebrate crap? This is the topic of this week’s podcast, and a discussion on our journey through embracing crap making and coming out better for it.
I saying I repeat early and often is “Ok-ness is the enemy of greatness”. You see, most stuff that exists is good enough, and that goes for people too. …
What obstacles stand in the way of greatness?
Being someone that is on the path of Mastery, I’m in tune with the obstacles that can impede me from achieving Mastery. So, anyone who’s overcome obstacles on the path to Mastery is interesting to me. It’s also one the reasons why I’m a HUGE fan of Robert Greene, the author of The 48 Laws of Power, The Art of Seduction, The 33 Strategies of War, The 50th Law and Mastery.
He studies power and mastery in all his books through the lives of people from past and present.
In his latest book, Mastery, he explores the idea of reaching Mastery and how in order to reach it he lays out how social intelligence matters, because you can be brilliant in your field, but if you’re bad with people you neutralize your talent and expertise:…
What do all creative cultures have in common? The common answer is that in order to figure out which ideas will work, people move fast to implement those ideas. I’d argue that more important than that is the ability to recover from failure just as fast:…
