When something doesn’t make a lot of sense or pieces seem to be missing, it’s easy to assume the simplest explanation. But there is no reason a made-up simple explanation is any more likely to be true than a made-up complicated explanation.

How many things that are true are quite complicated and counter-intuitive? Why would the things we don’t yet understand be simpler, on average, than those we do?

There’s a lot of focus on “first principles”, another way of saying things that will always be true. For good reason. When you understand and can live in accordance to first principles, you will do better than if you’re unmoored to anything beyond trends and tactics.

But there might be some missing value in not spending a bit more time trying to tease out the things that aren’t first principles, but seemed unshakable for a time. (Second principles?) Things that were so true for some period that you could bank on them, but they are no longer.

These often get swept in the dustbin of history, because they reversed usefulness so spectacularly, and now suffer only ridicule. Yet there are lessons in them, and often they come back around to being true again, or at least being similar to things that will be true again. They can point to and reveal first principles.

I was talking with a friend yesterday about how through most of the 2010s in marketing, Facebook and other digital ads were so ridiculously efficient that you could build entire business models around their low cost customer acquisition. Marketers learned totally different tactics and skills in that world, and it all made sense. Then it didn’t, and now marketers are scratching their heads.

Rather than just mock those heady days or throw the old playbooks out the window, it’s instructive to study what used to be fact and is now myth: just buy more leads on Facebook. What always-true first principles can this temporarily-true second principle point us to?

There’s a lot to work with and unpack. New models emerge and the gains go to the first movers. All games get gamed. Markets tend toward equilibrium. Arbitrage isn’t indefinite. Easy money makes weak workers. Whatever you tease out, it’s worth digging in to and hanging on to the memory of this discarded principle of marketing.

Plus, you know another wave of easy wins will come back dressed in different clothes. You want to see the similarity so you can take advantage of it, and so you can be prepared for its short lifespan.

Some people do not like to do hard work. They just want to party, even if their version of party means only sitting down with a book and a cup of tea. They will avoid hard work at all costs, sneak around it and cheat out of it.

Others have willed themselves to do hard work because it is required. They make a big deal to themselves and others about how hard the work is and how little they like it. They have a grumpy sort of pride in their discipline, but nothing approaching joy.

Still others manage to do hard work and enjoy it. Without bitterness that it must be done, without a sense of unfairness (though it sometimes is), without dullness or sullenness, and even without self-righteousness. They tackle their work as a routine, with a prayerful, thankful simplicity. It does not ruin their day nor does it make them feel better than others. They just do it with dignity and happiness and move along.

I am each of these at different times. You probably are too. It’s amazing how much better life is when I’m the third, but how hard it is to zoom out and remember that when the first is tempting me or the second is welling up.

There is a book on your shelf. If you read it, it would undo everything in your world.

It looks interesting, and you’ve thought about picking it up many times. With no strong aversion, some small thing has always prevented you from cracking it. You’ve pulled it out a few times, but a noise, a friend at the door, an interruption has come and you’ve slid it back into place.

There is sits. Proud, unmoved, powerful. It does not impose itself on you or draw you to it. Nor does it repel you. It’s just there. Somehow, it cannot – will not – be read.

What would happen if you tried to read it?

More than physical

Not less or just mystical

Beyond whimsical

Heaven is a weekend or holiday working alone in my office.

No colleagues are online, customers aren’t active, meetings aren’t scheduled, messages slow to a trickle, and I have my time, my quiet, my thoughts.

I put on some music, grab a cup of coffee (or a whiskey if it’s the afternoon), and use my whiteboard, Trello board, notepad, Google Slides, Docs, Sheets, or sticky notes to work on the business instead of in the business.

2-4 hours of this is perfect. I leapfrog ahead of tasks I was previously lagging on. I accelerate from barely hanging on to the train of the present to someplace miles in front of it, scouting the route into the future.

Few things feel better, and I’m reminded of the joy that comes in the toil set before mankind. I know the word “toil” sounds glib for a desk job. But I don’t take it lightly. Toil is every bit as real at a desk than behind a shovel.

When we owned some acreage and (I wasn’t behind on office work), I felt the same about farm work weekends. It’s not the nature of the toil, but the process of doing it alone, unbothered, on my own time, in my own way, at my own pace and with room to think. The act of clearing the to do list and plotting the next phase.

I don’t know the mechanism, but I know that the experience of true beauty makes us better people.

Beauty is not a luxury or an optional frill to the human existence. Nor is it a danger to be avoided. It is a necessity if we are to live as we were meant. We require beauty.

Step into a beautiful sunrise, or sunset, or wood, or field, or coast, or rain, or mountain view. Look at it and take it in. Now tell me it didn’t make you better, feed your soul, bolster your moral foundation, increase your charity.

A beautiful sculpture, piece of music, building, or face can do the same.

Beauty has a bad name because we are surrounded by its perversion. The devil always warps and distorts and shrivels and shrinks what is good, leaving only a parody-like husk of it that brings out our vices.

Overwhelming appeals to the erotic side of beauty, in places they do not belong, have made God-fearing people reticent to celebrate beauty. The cure is more and greater beauty, not ashes.

I gave a short pep talk this week to a class of graduating Praxians. I had about 10 minutes at a coffee shop to prep, and asked myself, “What would I cultivate if I were just starting my professional career today?”

Interestingly, what I came up with varies somewhat from what I would’ve (and have) said for most of the last two decades. I think cultural and technological change have shifted the ROI for various skills and mindsets.

The most prominent shift is in the first item on this list. Not many years ago, I would’ve said the opposite.

1. Idea generation. Ideas are more valuable than execution now. The ceiling on a great executor with few or weak ideas is lower than a person full of good ideas who is moderate but not great at execution. Why? Because there are more tools to handle more of the execution part than ever before. Generate tons of ideas, sort them later.
2. Good judgement. Judgement is hard to define and I’m not entirely sure how to cultivate it, but roughly it could be described as, “Knowing what to say and do when.” Read the room. Understand motives and incentives. See the games.
3. An entrepreneurial way of seeing. This is where the sorting of ideas comes in. Learn to see not just products or companies, but markets and business models. The order of importance in building a good business goes something like: Timing>Market>Segment>Problem>Distribution>Business Model>Team>Sales>Product>Innovation. When you look at products and businesses, ask yourself who their market is, what their model is, and whether it makes sense.
4. Story finding. When you encounter facts, learn to tease a narrative arc out of them. Get curious about the story behind them. Seek it out. Find it. Humans (including you) are motivated by stories, and learn through stories. Turn data points into a connective tale.
5. Story telling. Now learn to put those stories into a compelling format and deliver them. Story tellers can win partners, investors, employees, and customers. Start by learning to tell and retell your own story to yourself. Where are you in the grand arc? Knowing this will help keep you motivated and focused.

Don’t hold me to this as the definitive or absolute top five things to cultivate. They came to me top of mind at a coffee shop. But I’d absolutely tell my 20-year-old self, if he existed in 2024, to get busy cultivating these.

One of the hardest things for people to understand is that they are not hired or paid based on the value they create in a vacuum, or compared to just anyone else. The value they create is compensated based on how much it exceeds the value creation potential of the next best alternative in their role.

It’s easier to see in sports. A good linebacker works his tail off and has a high injury risk. He creates a ton of value for the team. A mediocre quarterback may work less hard and risk fewer injuries and create only a little value for the team. But the QB is likely paid more.

Why?

Because the next best alternative for the LB delivers about the same value, or just a hair less. While the next best alternative for the QB delivers significantly less value. In other words, it’s easier to find a solid LB than a solid QB. Supply and demand rule.

Even if the LB creates 10 units of value and the QB only creates 6, the next best LB probably can create 9.8, while the next best QB can only create 5. So the QB generates a full unit of value above the next best alternative, while the LB only creates 0.2. They will be paid not on the total value they bring to the team, but the value above replacement (VAR, or VORP – value over replacement player). The QB is a net positive of 1, which is five times greater than the LBs net positive of 0.2. The QB might make five times more, all else equal.

In the real world, there aren’t easily measurable units of value so it’s not just a math problem. It’s really hard to numerically value leadership, upside potential, downside risk, fan appreciation, negative outcomes for the team for signing or letting a player go, etc. But the basic calculous is still being done, albeit more crudely and intuitively, which is why mediocre QBs make more money than great players at other positions.

This translates everywhere in the market.

It doesn’t matter your total value creation as much as how much higher it is than your next best replacement. This means you are best suited to finding an intersection of skills that are rare and hard to replace, in a market that values them.

There are lots of people who are great at spreadsheets. Being great at that won’t drive a high VORP. There are also lots of people who are great at surfing. Not a high VORP if you’re a great surfer. But I bet there are only a handful of people in the world who are great at both spreadsheets and surfing. If you find a market where both skills are valued, being a person with that combo probably makes your VORP very high.

Don’t get mad at this or see it as unfair! It gives you an advantage and the ability to command outsized returns for leaning into your uniqueness.

When you’re humble, you know that you make mistakes. If you know that you make mistakes, you don’t feel panicked and defensive about the possibility that you made a mistake. If you’re not panicky or defensive, you have no problem hearing or experiencing people who imply you made mistakes. If you’re able to dispassionately assess such feedback, you’re able to resolve situations, learn, and grow without burning bridges or creating fights.

This is one of the reasons humility is such a strength.

The humble person has nothing to defend or maintain when it comes to perceptions of their own failings. This frees them to focus on the things that matter, navigate to the truth, and take away anything useful.

Humility does not mean being a pushover or not having boundaries. Those result from a lack of humility. When you lack humility, you worry about what people think of you and this makes you avoid conflict, confrontation, and the need to speak strong words or draw clear lines. Those are liable to make you less liked, and when you lack humility, you place inordinate value in being liked.

When you’re humble, you are distanced from the opinion of others enough to do what needs to be done and speak what needs to be spoken, regardless of whether it makes them like you less. This makes you stable, reliable, strong, true, and worthy of respect (even if you’re not always liked).

True humility is in short supply, so we don’t have many good examples. But when someone is unthreatened and not compelled to make sure they get their due, you get glimpses.

It’s good that we never have enough.

“Enough” means “I don’t want any more.” While it’s true we reach this state in specific instances, say having enough steak or sleep, the reason we want to cease is to have more of the next thing.

And there is always a next thing.

We are directional beings. We move, as the arrow of time, always forward. We always seek more, better, upward, inward, new. The form of these desires change. A young boy wants more time before bed, an old man wants bedtime to come sooner. But we are never satisfied. If we were, we’d be in stasis. Human action requires a desire for more.

Even as we decline physically, we are still ever advancing and evolving in our desires. I suspect this continues right on after we pass from this plane. I think reality itself is engineered in an eternal, inexorable pull toward the inexhaustible vastness of God. Always seeking to get closer, becoming new at every step, perpetually in chase, making progress but never arriving at a point of stasis.

North shrouded in myst

When it clears you can’t resist

Such a time as this

Work isn’t always fun. That’s perfectly normal and ok. But whenever you find work that makes you want to do it – where other stuff is getting in the way and you can’t wait to get back to your desk – find ways to do more of it.

If you practice generosity in your assumptions, it helps you be more useful to others.

If you’ve ever tried any kind of gratefulness practice, like thinking of someone to write a thank you note to or writing down things you’re thankful for every day, you might notice your logical brain raising objections.

“OK, sure, I could be thankful for this person doing this thing that benefited me, but in all honesty, I probably would’ve achieved the same outcome anyway. They weren’t really the causal agent in that outcome, I was.”

Life is too complex to reduce to a linear chain of causality. The path we take in life could be radically different if not for a few tiny variables. Yes, you are the dominant agent in your own life, and it’s possible many helpful people along the way were nice-to-haves rather than necessities. But if you try to parse it out and figure out exactly who gets what credit, you’ll develop a stingy view of causality.

Not only will this make gratefulness and generosity towards others harder, it will make you less capable of seeing your own goodness and ability to improve others lives and the world.

Look for excuses to thank others for even the smallest contributions. You’ll begin to see causality in a more expansive and generous manner, full of infinite contributors, mysterious, and joyful. This will be of great aid when you are at your lowest point. It will be easier to see the possibility of your own unseen contributions to the lives of others – the Remnant out there that you may be supporting in silence.

I once met with an OG exec from Apple. I asked him how the company managed to maintain so much of its founding culture despite its immense growth.

He told me it was all about hiring, and in some cases NOT hiring. He said Steve Jobs had a saying, “It’s better to have a hole in the organization than an asshole.”

He also told me they had one role open for nine years before they found the right person.

I admire this. I’m not sure I’m patient enough, but I try to take at least something from it.