Principles

2x Activation Energy for Change

A new bet must grow at a multiple of your baseline to matter—don't dribble it in.

Communication4 steps

CORE Feedback Structure

Context, Observation, Result, Next Step — feedback about behavior, never personality

Strategy3 steps

Differentiation vs Table Stakes

Balance the roadmap between what attracts new customers and what they require to switch at all

Do the Opposite

Study what everyone's doing not to copy it, but to find the 180 that stands out.

Self-Mastery3 steps

Find Sparring Partners, Not Mentors or Coaches

Seek peers in the ring with you who'll throw real punches—not advice from the sidelines.

First-Principles Future Visualization

Build vision by vividly imagining the far future, then extracting what must be true

Self-Mastery4 steps

Forest Time

Schedule intentional monthly time to leave the trees and survey the forest — because good aim precedes huge investment.

Mindset3 steps

From Victim Consciousness to Radical Responsibility

Shift from 'life happens to me' to 'I author my response' to reclaim agency

Communication4 steps

Gauge How It Lands

Read the reaction in real time and adjust which axis you move on — sad/mad means move up on care

Marketing3 steps

Growth Is a System (Acquisition–Retention–Monetization)

Change one part of the growth system and you change them all—so fix the true source.

Hiring on Skills, Attributes, and Values

Evaluate people in three dimensions — skills, attributes, and values — not skills alone, which is only ~50% predictive.

Inspect the Work, Not the Person

Judge people by their actual output, not by how they talk in a conversation.

Leading Without Fear: Allow, Come Home, Reframe

Break the cognitive-emotive fear loop in high-stakes moments instead of suppressing it

Productivity5 steps

Mandatory vs. Optional Onboarding Split

Split onboarding into a spare mandatory setup and a random-access optional layer — model the buyer's mind, not your features.

Map Your Product Against What AI Can Do

Start from your product's core job, then classify each part as AI-replace, augment, partial, or not-yet

Entrepreneurship5 steps

Picking a Sharp Problem

Build on a problem so acute customers spontaneously ask to pay — it becomes a tailwind that carries your mistakes.

Players, Coaches, Captains

Split leadership into on-field captains and sideline coaches so top ICs never leave the game.

Mindset4 steps

Problems Never End (Be a Problem-Solving Machine)

Stop hoping the next fix makes it easier; reframe success as earning harder problems.

Marketing3 steps

Product-Market-Story Fit

Great product in a great market still fails if the story is wrong or missing — add the third leg

Soliciting Feedback: The Order of Operations

Ask a go-to question, count to six, listen to understand, then reward the candor

Solving for Everyone Is Solving for No One

Get specific about who you're NOT for—that guardrail is stronger than defining who you are.

Swinging the Pendulum

Spot an undesirable state, correct it — but know you'll overcorrect, so aim for the middle

Tell Me What It Takes to Win, Then Tell Me the Costs

Ask for the un-watered-down plan to win first; negotiate the costs down second.

Sales4 steps

The Four Forces of Switching

Understand any adoption decision as a tug-of-war between attraction, anxiety, habit, and inertia

The Radical Candor 2x2

Care personally AND challenge directly — the two axes that place every act of feedback

The Three Career Conversations

Past, dreams, and action plan — three 45-minute conversations to show you care and grow people

Strategy5 steps

The Three Modes of Customer Understanding

Separate targeted Discovery, always-on Continuous Conversations, and passive Customer Listening — each needs its own machinery.

Strategy5 steps

The Use Case Map (Use Cases, Not Personas)

Define what to build and how to grow from the use case, not the persona.

Self-Mastery3 steps

The Whole-Body Yes: Decoding Emotions as Signals

Read fear, sadness, anger, joy, and creative energy as actionable workplace data

Strategy3 steps

The Year Is Made in the First Six Months

Because buying cycles lag, your annual number is set by what you ship in H1, not H2.

Innovation4 steps

The Zone of Benefit (3x Rule)

A product must make the customer at least 3x better before they notice enough to switch and pay.

Marketing5 steps

Virality as Customer-Augmented Marketing

Real virality is high-quality word of mouth from a great product — not synthetic referral traps bolted on top.

Strategy3 steps

Vision-Execution Polarity Balance

Diagnose whether you're over-theorizing or over-running-walls, and dynamically retune

Strategy5 steps

Where to Fish for a Unicorn: The Workflow Quadrant

Score a B2B SaaS idea on two axes — workflow breadth and frequency — to predict billion-dollar potential.

Self-Mastery3 steps

Your Life's Objective Function

Make your implicit life values explicit and test daily choices against future-you