2025-11-16 18:03:00
Every one of the pings, dings and clicks on this page gives me the hives. Run them in a quick sequence and I need to leave the room. They are our Pavlovian bells, designed to trigger us into action.
At the bottom right is a button that says ‘stop all.’
That’s a useful idea.
We didn’t sign up for this all at once. We were seduced into becoming trained seals gradually, fish by fish.
Important work might not be quick or automatic or easy.
2025-11-15 18:03:00
If someone hands you a deck, you can be sure there are 52 cards covering four suits.
The universe is finite. The cards are the cards, and games work precisely for that reason. Every deck is the same, and all the players have the same options.
Some of the systems we compete in have a limited number of cards, known to all.
More often, though, there is the possibility of surprise. Options that weren’t considered by others, paths that are still unexplored. Technology mints new cards, but so do brave decisions and commitment.
It’s rare to know all the available cards, and rarer still to have them all.
2025-11-14 18:03:00
I’m not sure this is the right word for it, but we certainly need one.
Not ‘entrepreneurship’ which is a distinct skill. That term is usually reserved for people who start at zero and get to one, and mostly for people who operate in small businesses creating financial value through assets and equity.
But what about the person who navigates an important non-profit through changing times?
Or a product manager you can trust to not only ship the next solution on time, but to do it with unexpected improvements and a team that ends up better as a result of the journey. Some salespeople have it, guiding a complex transaction, and others don’t.
Captaincy describes someone who doesn’t just go to meetings–they change the outcome of the meeting. Someone who doesn’t depend on authority but is eager to take responsibility. It’s not about having a great idea… it’s about leading when the great idea collides with reality.
Winston Churchill and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf showed up as captains when that skill was really needed. So did Alexander Hamilton, for a while.
Captains set the agenda, create tension and lean into possibility. Captains aren’t just doing their job, they’re creating something that others thought was unlikely. They rarely have all the answers, but they’re very good at asking questions.
The difference between a successful artist and a painter is that the artist becomes captain of the creative arc, determining where and when to show up and what impact they seek to make.
You might not always want to choose a captain to join the team. A founder-led organization thinking about succession plans might prefer to hire a capable, persistent bureaucrat, someone who can reliably follow the model that’s already in place. A restless search for a new problem to solve might not be as valuable as simply doing a really good job on the existing problems.
Alas, we don’t teach ‘captaining’ in school. Sometimes, it arises, almost accidentally, in school sports and clubs. In fact, the culture of high school usually fights to make it go away. We don’t make it easy to describe on a resume, and there are no good tests for it.
It’s a skill, certainly, and ultimately a choice. We can model it, support it and create an organizational culture that makes it more likely to occur.
First, let’s name it and go looking for more of it.
2025-11-13 18:03:00
When the long-term cost of our situation is uncomfortably linked to the short-term expense and pain of changing the situation, it’s easy to feel stuck.
One way to deal with the feeling is to insist that there’s no way to change the situation. That the price we’ll have to pay upfront is so big, we simply have to live with the day to day consequences, forever.
An alternative is to realize that we might have a choice. If we choose to stay where we are, we’re not stuck at all, we’re simply selecting our best option.
From there, we can make an informed choice about whether we really want to live with the long-term consequences of that choice. If so, at least we can own the outcome.
If you had tomorrow to do over again, how would you choose to do it?
Stuck is a situation, stuck might be a problem, and stuck can be a choice.
2025-11-12 18:03:00
This is the challenging insight that every generation comes to grips with.
It might be a rising cohort of teachers or managers. It might be the next cycle of companies. And it might be the shifting power dynamic in families or organizations.
No one gives you a certificate, an endorsement or a magical sword pulled from a stone.
The moment simply arrives.
What will you do when it’s your turn?
2025-11-11 18:03:00
Ideas open doors, lead to connections and make things better.
But not all good ideas are good businesses.
Crop rotation is a good idea. So is sous vide cooking and the sport of juggling. But these aren’t good businesses.
A business thrives when it can charge a premium–selling something for more than it costs. That means that there has to be a competitive advantage, an asset that produces value. Easy substitutions are a challenge for businesses, but useful ideas are often based on how easy they are to share.
Create something of value. And then find a reason why people will eagerly choose your version and happily pay extra for it.
[Update: After 20+ years, the original RSS feed for this blog doesn’t work any longer. The one to use is: https://seths.blog/feed/ I strongly recommend RSS, it’s the best way to read blogs. Own your communications, don’t let Google filter them.]
