The XP I gained off-map
Side Quests.
Books I'd save
If only three could survive — for the rest of the world to read, and grow a new civilisation on — I'd pick these three. No notes.
Sun Tzu
The Art of War
Less about war, more about not picking fights you can't win. Useful when sales calls go sideways.
Morgan Housel
The Psychology of Money
The thing nobody told me at 19: spreadsheets don't make you rich, behaviour does. Read it twice; thank me later.
Dale Carnegie
How to Win Friends and Influence People
Old, slightly creaky, deeply correct. Mostly: care about people in a way that doesn't feel like homework.
Small lessons
Nothing technical. Mostly the kind of stuff a slightly-older friend would tell you over coffee.
- 01
Most "urgent" emails can wait until Tuesday.
And most replies are better at 7 a.m. Wednesday than 11 p.m. Monday.
- 02
If a meeting could have been a Loom, it could have been a paragraph.
And the paragraph could have been a sentence.
- 03
Compliments cost zero.
Specific ones cost slightly more, and return roughly a thousand.
- 04
Buying friends coffee is the highest-yield investment available.
No prospectus needed. Returns vary. Always positive.
If you want the longer-form version of any of this — there's a tiny pile of writing on the blog.