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Principles of the Unreasonable: 7 Traits of Top Innovators
Innovation has always had a public relations problem. After something works, we romanticize it. We tell neat stories about visionary founders and breakthrough moments and pretend the path was logical all along. Yet while those same innovators were in the thick of trying to build something new, the world rarely called them brilliant. More often…
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Growing a Business is Like Playing a Game of Cricket
In an interview on The Deal with Alex Rodriguez and Jason Kelly, Jerry Jones – owner, President and General Manager of the Dallas Cowboys, was asked how he built the most valuable sports franchise in the world. Here…a man who had lived several lives settled into his chair and told the truth without announcing that…
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The Story we tell Ourselves about why People say “yes” to our Marketing
I’ve noticed we have a habit of congratulating the wrong thing… especially in business. Someone says yes and we rush to credit the headline, the funnel, the positioning, the sly little hook we thought up in the shower. It feels good to imagine the yes was engineered, that we lined up the dominos just right…
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Being Vague WILL Kill your Business
Most of us don’t suffer from lack of talent. We suffer from a lack of focus. We say things like: “I just want to earn more money.”“I’m ready to grow my business.”“I want to attract better clients.” Sounds great. Except… how much more money? What kind of growth? Which clients? We leave the details fuzzy,…
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How Quickly Can You Dismantle Democracy Within an Organization?
Timothy Ryback’s The Atlantic piece, How Hitler Dismantled a Democracy in 53 Days, is a case study in speed and strategy. In less than two months, Germany’s democratic Weimar Republic—complete with constitution, free press, and elections—was hollowed out and replaced with a dictatorship. This isn’t about comparing leaders to Hitler. It’s about recognizing how systems…
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The Brilliance & Breakdown when Scaling
Leo S. Maranz was one of the earliest and most successful franchisers in American business. A mechanical engineer by training, he invented an automatic ice-cream freezer that could produce soft ice cream continuously—technology that didn’t just make dessert; it made a new kind of business possible. From the start, Maranz knew what he wanted and…

