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• It’s not ambition or skill that is going to set you apart but sanity.

The “size” of a leadership episode could be measured as a product of *stakes* and *energy.* Ie, the value of what’s at stake times the energy output rate (in the sense of Andy Grove’s idea of “high-output management”) that needs to be put in for the duration, to make something happen. Here’s the 2×2 with the resulting for BDFxing archetypes (which are transient *roles,* not personalities).

Some people tend to be more systematically curious than others. Those curious minds are generally adventurous, creative, less risk-averse, and seem to seek and enjoy exploration more than others.

In the presentation, when Jobs did the world’s first “swipe to unlock,” the audience made an audible gasp. A minute later, he brought up a list of artists in the phone’s “iPod” app and asked, “Well, how do I scroll through my list of artists? I just take my finger and scroll.” Another audible gasp. It’s weird that something so normal today was jaw-dropping 17 years ago.

This was as far from a VR headset as a kid’s Schwinn bicycle is from a Gulfstream G800 private jet.

We know what quality means to us! We *feel* it. We know why high quality things cost more and we know how it influences our choices. In the physical world, it’s the difference between a $15.00 price tag and a $150 one.

i went mostly offline and then all this happened

Every founder tells themselves a story about why they’re heading to the gold rush, but the executive coach I would eventually hire says there are really only two. Do you want to be rich, generating wealth in service of some further end? Or do you want to be king, with money a mere byproduct of trying to make the world the way you feel it should be?

The business consultant William Bridges argued that every transition involves a period of loss, then a period in the neutral zone, and then a period of rebirth. The loss that comes with retirement can be brutal. Some highly successful people mourn the life that gave them meaning and made them the center of the room. People in the neutral zone don’t yet know who the new version of themselves will be. They report feeling hollow, disoriented, empty.

Explain ideas in simple terms, strongly and clearly, so that they can be rebutted, remixed, reworked — or built upon.