In 2010, a heavy metal kid suddenly took the dance music world by storm. When Sonny Moore aka Skrillex broke onto the scene, he played over 300 shows in the first year. In the second year, he did maybe 10% of that. What changed? Well, a lot. Profile, direction, team,…
Browsing Category Career Fuel
Do you remember your first 10?
Every business starts somewhere. There are very few that got off the ground with hundreds or thousands of customers rather than ten, one, or none. The first ten are a huge deal for a bunch of reasons. They validate the business and the founders’ reason for starting up. They inform…
30 degree days
Stringer Bell doesn’t like 40 degree days. Except when it’s 30. Let alone 20. For many of us, the last few weeks have been clocking in at 40, 45, maybe 50 (metaphorically speaking, if not literally). This morning, it was nearer 30. The cold cut into my fingers, the wind…
Zenith & Nadir
When I was a talent agent, there’d be a couple of times a year where a client would hit a deep dip straight after a tour. After the zenith, came the nadir. I never really understood it – until last week. I spent the week flat-out on an intense project….
Pareto in a pandemic
The theme of last month’s newsletter was Dormant Ties. As the professor and author Herminia Ibarra puts it, dormant ties are those connections that were once strong but have gone dormant for 3 years or more. The dormant ties can easily be fossilized, disappearing forever. Resurfacing them gets especially tough…
The $15m unbranding
When Matthew McConnaughey decided to stop doing romantic comedies, he told his agent, Jim Toth at CAA, to make sure any romcom scripts did not make it past the desk. For 6 months, that’s all that came in. Nothing got past the desk. Then, another romcom, but with a strong…
The flipped fortune cookie
“What would you tell your younger self?” It’s one of the most popular questions you’ll hear in interviews. The answers are nearly always reassuring. They give us a warm feeling; a gentle sugary surge. But this is the problem. It’s too often a confection; a hindsight-baked fortune cookie: “Take your…
The Rough Edges
The photographer who infuses their biology degree into the art. The fashion stylist who spent time as a national-level rower. The educator who links teaching with rave DJs. The big-city brand strategist who built social enterprises in rural Africa. They’re not going to be for everyone. They’ll get overlooked plenty. But…
The cycles of alchemy
For the last 2 or 3 years I’ve become more interested in behavioural economics – or rather, I’ve realised there’s a name for some of the stuff I’ve long been interested in sticking my nose into (so to speak). One of the more well-known voices in this area is Rory…