Brushing twice daily is important, but it doesn't replace dental checkups. Gum disease and tooth decay can develop before you experience serious pain. Don't wait for a toothache before seeing a dentist.
Your skin has its own neighbourhood of microorganisms.
The skin microbiome contains bacteria and other microbes that interact with your skin barrier. Overusing harsh cleansing products can disturb the balance your skin works to maintain.
Your tongue can reveal more than what you ate.
Changes in its colour, texture or surface can sometimes point to dehydration, irritation or nutritional problems. A persistent change deserves attention, especially if it comes with pain.
Some of the best marketing lessons I know come from old school advertising, way more than from tech marketing.
You get about two seconds of someone's attention to earn another minute. Most startups spend those two seconds on a category label.
"AI-native orchestration platform for logistics" tells me what you think you are. "Your trucks stop driving around empty." tells me what I get. Same company, completely different result.
A few rules I use when I rewrite positioning with founders:
1. Speak your customer's language. If your buyer wouldn't say it out loud on a call, it doesn't belong in your headline.
2. Pick ONE audience. The moment you try to talk to three, nobody feels like you're talking to them.
3. Open with something positive the customer wants, and save the scary problem stats for later.
4. Zag when your competitors zig. If every site in your category looks the same, the fastest way to get remembered is to look different.
5. Kill the buzzwords. I once got a draft back so full of them that my entire feedback was "maybe just tell Claude to stop being such a geek" haha.
Your technology might be incredible. Nobody finds out if the first line reads like an architecture diagram.
Things that prepared me to be a founder that are nowhere on my LinkedIn.
At 12, I ran a relative's gravestone business for a summer after they went into long-term care. I got a $10,000 loan, and the business did well. You learn a lot about customers very fast in that industry.
In high school in Sweden I was on a film director track. After a bunch of internships I realized working with creative people was really hard for me and my math wasn't useful there, so I switched to engineering. Nice plot twist.
In my first year of university I got elected Party Master. I thought I'd be great at it. It turned out to mean courses in responsible alcohol serving and fire safety, and a full year of being the only sober person cleaning up after everyone. It taught me more about leadership than any course I took.
I've always ended up in places I probably shouldn't have been, because I say yes to things. I still recommend it.
A video of a robot spreading adhesive and laying floor tiles on concrete went viral. Millions of views, and the comments are split between "amazing" and "there goes the trade."
I build construction robots, so here's my honest take. Specialized machines win the repetitive, back-breaking jobs. The skilled people move to setup, edges and quality checks.
Construction is short hundreds of thousands of workers. Tying rebar is the same story for us: thousands of ties a day, 16-gauge wire, same motion every time. Let the robot take the grind.
Humanoid hype won't pour the slab. One machine that does one job well will.
Things that quietly make people lose respect for you:
- Gossiping about people you smile with
- Making everything about you in every conversation
- Disappearing when things get hard
- Acting like rules don’t apply to you
Things that quietly make people respect you more:
- Speaking about people the same way when they’re not around
- Asking how someone is and actually waiting for the answer
- Staying consistent even on messy days
- Owning your side without needing credit
When she’s venting: weak man vs high value man
As a weak man:
Her: (starts talking about a stressful day or problem)
Him: (immediately jumps in with solutions or starts talking about his own similar experience)
As a high value man: