Deri

I tweet on mastering the art & science of consulting. Building a consulting skills training firm with no-code & a trainer community. Dad of 4, doing my Work.

[Deri @DeriHughes]

This is an excellent idea. Maybe even part of that day with no screen, just a pen and some paper.

[Kourosh Ghaffari @BuildingWaves]

Thinking of doing "AI-free days"

1 day per week without AI
Only old-school thinking

Use that day to find the best things to work on. Come up with strategies yourself.

Execute on the days when you do use AI

[Deri @DeriHughes]

@eToroTeam @eToro - I've done this twice in the last 2 days and now have to do it again. Is this now part of your login process?

When I do it, the Continue page then reappears 4 times every time I open the app

This isn't a great user experience...

[Deri @DeriHughes]

My life with Claude...

"Two jobs, kept separate" is a poor attempt at the overall governing thought. What does it even mean?

Delete the nonsense fluff like "The spine is the one that cannot wait" and "individual asks become joint conversations" - every word must be valuable

[Honeycomb Consulting Skills Training @HoneycombCST]

Our team took an hour to talk about our Claude integration programme. Not the process itself, but how we are all feeling about it.

There are many good answers to the question 'why?', but I've been through enough transformation programmes to know that doesn't automatically translate into positive engagement and implementation. Some of the downsides our team voiced:

1. The speed of AI can train you to value getting something done over thinking it through, and thereby lower the quality bar.

2. It can create a particular kind of mental fatigue: working at the machine’s pace while your brain still runs at human pace. The ideas that used to arrive on a dog walk, in the shower, or in the car now get squeezed out by the rush to the next task.

3. A sense of loss, which resonated with me in particular - AI can now do things I used to be proud of being able to do, and do them quickly.

We all seemed to share a love-hate relationship with Claude, excited by the possibilities while watching it take over parts of the job we enjoyed. I think that ambivalence is the right place to be.

I wrote an article to share the process we went through, more about what came out of it, and why I think it's a good idea for any business facing into an AI transformation. Read it here: https://t.co/Drg4zolN15

[Deri @DeriHughes]

@edleonklinger Definitely interested!

[Deri @DeriHughes]

@BradleyrJacobs Awesome, good on you. I've done a lot of work with the Mankind Project, was life changing for me.

[Deri @DeriHughes]

@levelsio @levelsio - could also be related to your biomechanics.

I've done 12 powerlifting meets and always squatted more than I've pulled. Short femur / long back crew.

Great work on getting strong 💪

[Deri @DeriHughes]

@DudespostingWs Also pulled 520kg the next day, and curled 110kg

And he's only 25...

[Deri @DeriHughes]

The best mindset shift here is from "talking about your consulting offer" to just sharing your expertise

Easier to do before you leave, and the better strategy for becoming known as an authority in your space anyway, which is what ultimately generates pipeline

[Bradley Jacobs @BradleyrJacobs]

I was talking to a director at a well-known tech company who's planning to leave in about six weeks to go all-in on consulting. He already has a warm client lined up, his offer is solid, and honestly his timing is pretty good. But he's not posting anything publicly yet because he's worried about what colleagues will think if they see him building something while he's still there.

I get the instinct. It feels disloyal, or at minimum awkward, and the last thing you want is your manager seeing a LinkedIn post about your consulting offer before you've had that conversation. So you wait. You tell yourself you'll start the second you're out.

The problem is that trust doesn't build overnight and pipeline doesn't appear because you finally have business cards that don't say your old employer's name. The people who wait until their last day start from zero on the day they can least afford it.

[Deri @DeriHughes]

My autistic son now can't sleep after hearing the emergency alarms on the phones in our house, sent to unnecessarily warn us not to do stupid things

Thanks, British government

We are led by idiots

[Deri @DeriHughes]

@p_millerd @RaoulGMI is a smidge over 30... He knows macro inside out and talks a lot about the enormous economic changes coming post-2030

[Deri @DeriHughes]

@p_millerd Many had certain expectations set from childhood for sure

I think I had a higher level of comfort for risk, but maybe also less to lose in terms of family status / reputation

[Deri @DeriHughes]

When I left Bain to go independent I had Bainies say to me "I'm so jealous"

I was like: Why? I'm literally leaving without a job. There is zero barrier to you doing the same.

Took me a while to realise how many self-imposed barriers many have for these kinds of decisions

[Paul Millerd @p_millerd]

its still funny when people ask me stuff like "how do you get paternity leave?"

self-employment remains a mystery and sort of an unimaginable existence for people. for many its almost as bad as unemployment

but from this side it also is a weird reality. you have every day off if you want it. or every day can be a work day in a way that would be terrible if you worked seven days in a row for a company.

one of the mental models I've had, especially since year 1 when i realized i wanted to infinite game this shit, is that I have to "pay for the year". on top of that a bigger goal has always been "be able to pause work for six months at any time for any reason"

each year thats a different challenge. our cost of living has ranged from 35k to 150k, and my income (take home profit) has ranged from 35k to 249k. each month im sort of doing mental calculations on what feels right in terms of needing to worry or not about money.

the past few year ive been very lucky. a few passive income streams, book revenue, and some other random stuff always coming in such that I've more or less had a feel that I have very high odds that 75% or so of my spending will likely be covered.

i think the next chapter of this (and something im writing about in terms of my relationship to money) is thinking about how I might reimagine a new story for myself beyond "pay for the year"

at least for now with young kids this works very nicely, as I more or less lean into life over work pretty smoothly. i dont see my lifes mission as making tons of money and i like spending time wth my kids. but i do wonder what the next iteration of this path might look like moving forward into year 10 and beyond

so yeah no one gives me paternity leave but if you want to buy 100 copies of my hardcover, ill include that in my paternity stipend

but most of all i just built a life where i can take six months off and feel good about it (at any time during my kids childhood, not just after birth!)

which is way less stressful than having to ask my employer to take a week off because my daughter is having a challenging time

[Deri @DeriHughes]

Just took a call, whilst on holiday, confirming we've won a seven-figure sales training contract (against the incumbent supplier)

Building a business has lows, but this is a big high

Got to stay in the game long enough for expertise, relationships, and reputation to compound

[Deri @DeriHughes]

@p_millerd Congrats mate!

[Deri @DeriHughes]

@flsuetweets @NiklausFuller I'd be all over it if they were allowed in the UK!

[Deri @DeriHughes]

Claude seems to have got noticeably dumber over the last day or so. Fable in particular. Anyone else sensing that?

[Deri @DeriHughes]

@jspujji GEO