This Is Strategy: Make Better Plans (Create a Strategy to Elevate Your Career, Community & Life)

It might be helpful to imagine that we can choose a persona for our project and our work. Each is appropriate in some circumstances—the trap lies in wearing one of these hats and then hoping for the result that comes from a different one.

The network effect powers any system that deserves it.

Most of the time, though, we’re looking for two axes that no one has thought to highlight before. When we find the right combination, we see that one of the four squares in the 2 x 2 grid is wide open, and we can claim it.

the author’s job is to sell the first 10,000 copies of a book, and then it’s the book’s job to sell the rest.

Good decisions are worth making, even if they don’t always lead to good outcomes.

Elegant strategies use systems. Even when they set out to change the system, they don’t fight it directly but use the system as a tool to change the system. This approach only gets better over time. The word spreads horizontally. Trust grows. Engagements lead to more engagements.

Every day we trade time, opportunity and money to obtain assets. If we do this without intent, we’ll simply get our tasks done and waste whatever assets we could have earned.

When we’re surrounded by people who already know, our journey gets easier, and the tension involved in moving forward outweighs our fear.

Who’s it for? What’s it for? If you tell us that you’re making this movie for you, your muse, your scrapbook, then whatever you wrote or staged or edited is exactly right. It’s not wrong. Keep it. But if your strategy is to delight the audience, and the film doesn’t do that, it’s wrong.