The 30th Edition - On the "Would You Rather" strategy icebreaker, crafting better value props & investing small amounts of money
Did you know that the color you see in pitch darkness has a name?
Did you know that the color you see in pitch darkness has a name?
If you close your eyes in a completely dark room. When you open them, the color you see is called eigengrau, which means intrinsic gray. It's the shade of dark gray people see when there's no light. (source)
Read
🤔 Here’s How to Craft Better Value Propositions for Infrequent Products
In this great article from Reforge, you can learn a great framework for finding the right insights & crafting a much more successful value prop for your product.
Bonus points if your product falls in the “Infrequent” category (accounting, travel, real estate, etc.)
Watch
This week has been dry for me in terms of good material to watch (I over-indexed on the Obi-Wan show, the new Stranger Things season, and the new Boys Season 3 that just came out).
But throughout, I kept thinking how to invest my small windfall, and I found this video helpful.
Remember
“If you do not undertake a risk of real, reversible or even potentially irreversible, harm from an adventure, it is not an adventure.” - Nassim Nicholas Taleb (source)
“Internalize other people’s joy. In doing so, we increase our own capacity to feel this emotion in relation to our own experiences.” - Robert Greene (source)
Consider
Good Non-Prestigious Opportunities: Most of us chase some kind of prestige. Working at a big SaaS company, chasing a “Chief” title, a new trendy career - mimetic desire underpins this chase. “Mimetic desire” is the core idea from philosopher René Girard (1923-2015). It can be summarised as follows: "Man is the creature who does not know what to desire, and he turns to others in order to make up his mind. We desire what others desire because we imitate their desires." But prestige has no inherent value. It’s only valuable because others find it valuable. Think of the opportunities you miss because they don’t seem prestigious.
Read The Headlines: A trick I learned from copywriters, for anyone writing anything to convince someone. Read through your writing, but read ONLY the headlines. Let your eyes bounce from headline to headline without reading the body text. Do the headlines tell the story? If not - rewrite them.
“Would You Rather” Icebreaker: Last week, my team was discussing strategy. I created an icebreaker exercise. It’s a spin on the “Would You Rather” game: you ask people to choose between 2, and only 2 options. You start out small (“tea or coffee”, “Marvel or DC”, etc.) and then gradually move to difficult tradeoffs (“get benefit X but never be able to achieve benefit Y” or “get all the benefit Y but completely miss benefit X”). This helped clarify where we stood on the dimensions of our strategy - and it’s always fun to play. Try it out.
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Have a great week ahead & see you next week.