2026-02-23 18:51:00
Sarcasm is an easy way to amplify feedback.
It has two hidden costs:
If you have confidence in your standing and your idea, then sarcasm is simply getting in the way, because it undermines both.
2026-02-23 00:30:00
Millions of folks are about to get snowed in. Stay safe.
Here’s a code for last year’s Thriving with AI course on Udemy. It’s free for the first 1,000 people. Sorry, we hit Udemy’s limit. That was quick. Here’s an unlimited 50% off for the Strategy course.
And I see that This is Marketing is currently half-price on Amazon.
Or you could build a snowman.
2026-02-22 18:03:00
It depends.
A freelancer, a brand, a musician–they’re here to serve. If people come to the restaurant for your famous marinara sauce, if new clients hire you to architect your signature style home or they want to dance to your top 40 hit, that’s what you’re here for.
Brands shouldn’t change their logo or their offerings when they get bored. They should do it when their accountant gets bored.
Unless…
Unless you’re an artist who doesn’t want to become a cover band of their former self.
Unless you use the frontier as fuel for creating more value in the long run.
Unless you’re no longer proud of what you used to do.
That hit is a gift from your former self. Like all gifts, you don’t have to accept it.
In addition to sunk costs, there are sunk benefits. Just because an asset belongs to you doesn’t mean you have to use it.
2026-02-21 18:03:00
Rice is one of the most consumed foods in the world, and it gives us insight into our relentless search for status and for affiliation.
Once rice is harvested for consumption, it’s brown. The outer layers of the rice husk contain the bran and many of the nutrients in the rice. And yet, most people, including many of the poorest people in any population, only eat white rice.
White rice takes more work to prepare for sale and leaves behind the vitamin-rich bran. We need to harvest more brown rice to make a single serving of white.
The origin of milling rice has to do with storage. Brown rice goes rancid much sooner, particularly in warm climates. As a result, white rice is more reliable–you’re not going to serve a bad batch.
The reliability led to status. Status in serving it and in consuming it. You might not have much, but at least you can eat white rice.
Once that signal is established, it becomes a sign of cultural affiliation. If your family or neighbors are doing it, it’s important to fit in. People insist that white rice is normal and that they prefer it, but that’s only because of their history and culture.
When white rice became a popular commodity and a signal, the demand for brown rice went down. Now it’s a specialty item, and that increases the price, apparently contradicting the very signal about status that made it unusual in the first place. (For some folks, the rarity, healthiness and price of brown rice make it a new sort of status symbol).
With improved supply chains and storage, brown rice is nearly as resilient as white rice is now, but the cultural trope remains. And because people like what they like, we’ve learned to prefer the blander flavor of the rice we were raised with.
If status and affiliation transform the market for one of our most basic commodities, it’s not hard to imagine what they do for wine, for clothing, or even for smartphones.
2026-02-20 17:11:00
I’ve been playing an online wordgame for a few months, and after each round, it shows me how well I’m doing against the 10,000 other people who are also playing.
It didn’t take long for me to realize that the stats weren’t improving my mood (a really good play had me ranking #398) and the competition was also turning into a habit.
Once I found the hide button, everything got better.
Sometimes, the competitive stats aren’t there to help you. They’re there to support the system and the people who run it.
2026-02-19 18:03:00
When phone cameras got good enough, portrait photographers scolded people who took their own headshots.
And when the Mac got pretty good at typesetting, professional designers pointed out that people who can’t tell a font from a typeface and don’t care about kerning should avoid it.
Professional translators bring humanity and insight to transforming writing from one language to another, but many people continue to use Google Translate…
Here’s the thing: the translators take their own headshots. Web designers often use translation software. And life coaches build their own websites with Squarespace and put their own selfies on Linkedin. We all make our own decisions, and most of the time, we use tech to do it ourselves.
This began with the Model T. Before that, people with enough money to buy a car also had a driver.
It’s not easy to find clients, particularly when technology makes it straightforward for many people to do the mechanical part of what you do for them on their own. It’s more convenient, faster and cheaper. It might not be as good by your standards, but if the client wants faster and cheaper, you’re unlikely to win that argument.
When was the last time you hired a studio photographer instead of using a stock photo of a piece of fruit? Or paid for a stock photo instead of using a cc or ai image? You might not cut your own hair (I’m not an expert) but you probably pump your own gas and cook your own meals.
The opportunity isn’t to race to the bottom, or to try to persuade someone that it’s worth upgrading. Instead, we can celebrate the fact that more people are discovering the power of photos, of type, of coaching and of cooking… and we can upgrade what we offer.
The goal is to be the first choice for people who couldn’t imagine doing it themselves, simply because their work is too important or your work is too good for them to ignore.
The best way to upgrade a freelance career is to get better clients. They challenge you, pay you more and talk about you more. And you don’t get better clients by working hard for lousy clients. You get better clients by becoming the kind of freelancer that better clients want to hire.
