Observations on how the best leaders light the path. Bi-weekly premium essays on “What the Best Leaders Say” and free daily posts on “The Art of Communicating”
What if your beautiful message attracts the wrong people
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After yesterday’s post, another thoughtful question came up: “What if the people who find my message beautiful aren’t my customers?” Fair point. And a smart one. Here’s how I think about it. If the message feels deeply right to you — not pretty, not clever, but right — that’s telling you something about what you stand for. It reveals the kind of meaning you want to create in the world. And that, in turn, shapes the kind of people who will want to work with you. So yes, maybe not everyone who finds it beautiful will buy from you. But the ones who do buy will do so for the right reasons. That’s the difference between customers and true supporters. In other words, if your beauty draws the “wrong” people, it might be worth asking: wrong for what? Wrong for short-term growth, or wrong for the future you actually want to build? In this sense, beauty isn’t just a filter for your audience, but also a mirror for your own alignment. If it doesn’t feel beautiful to you, you might be compromising what makes your work worth doing. The people who share that sense of rightness are your audience. They’re the ones who will stay when trends shift and attention fades. Keep lighting the path, __ Bringing people together for an event? My keynotes are sharp, respectful, and often unexpectedly personal. They give your audience insights they can act on. |
The Art of Communicating / What the Best Leaders Say
Observations on how the best leaders light the path. Bi-weekly premium essays on “What the Best Leaders Say” and free daily posts on “The Art of Communicating”
In a few days, my new project “What the Best Leaders Say” will launch. I thought it would be fun to look at the opposite first. The things they never say. What makes this list interesting to me is that most of it sounds reasonable at first sight. Human even. Like, this is a caring person. But in my experience, it often achieves the opposite of what was intended. Worse, I’ve even sometimes seen them being used to manipulate. To give the appearance of calm and clarity while the reality is...
What the Best Leaders Say Issue 1 Welcome to the first edition of What the Best Leaders Say. If you’ve been following my work for a while, you know that I’m not interested in convenient truths. I’m interested in helping people who care say what matters in the clearest way possible. Even if it’s inconvenient. Even if it’s difficult. Heck, even if it hurts. I wholeheartedly believe that we can’t leave the world to those who care less. Or those who communicate carelessly. We need people like...
I get it: The world doesn’t need another newsletter.But you know what? I don’t care. I launch one anyway. I want a place where I can go deep. Much deeper than in my usual posts. Where I can write the kind of pieces I wished existed when I was trying to make sense of leadership myself many years ago. A place where simplistic hacks are unwelcome. Because we value profound answers over quick ones. A place where we don’t stop at the recipe but try to understand why it works, where it works. And...