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From EP48 Spotify Apple YouTube

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"Strategy is a philosophy of becoming.

Who will we become?

Who will we be of service to, and who will they help others to become?

This is strategy. Strategy isn't a map. It's a compass."

I love this opening description because it forces you to think about the butterfly effect of your actions—what you do, how it helps others, and how they then help others in turn. A compass gives you direction when you're lost, allowing you to zoom out and see the bigger picture.

"Once your basic needs for food, shelter, and health are met, most people dance with three conflicting desires: affiliation, status, and freedom from fear.

Affiliation is community—fitting in, being liked, affiliation is wearing the right fashion, using the correct salad fork, and knowing the words to the song around the campfire.

Status is always relative—who eats lunch first, who's up and who's down.

Freedom from fear is an internal construct.

Fear can be used as fuel, but it's more likely to be avoided."

The concept of status stood out to me here. It seems superficial at first glance, but it's a vital part of many systems. Whether we consciously play status games or not, they affect us.

"Most of us don't walk to the stream to fetch the day's water.

Instead, we're happy to pay a small fee to get water from a pipe, which comes from a treatment plant, which is part of the city's infrastructure.

We don't try to persuade every person we meet of our status and knowledge.

Instead, we paid with time and money to engage with an educational institution that awarded us a certificate in exchange.

And even if we spend our days working as a soloist, we're not alone—we're part of a collective or an industry, a system to take inputs and outputs and turn them into something of value for all participants."

This highlights how technological advancements, like piped water, often become invisible over time. It’s a reminder of how systems make life easier and why collaboration is essential for scaling and thriving.

"Systems are more than built objects.

They are the collision between those objects and the natural world.

They’re the complex interactions of culture, humans engaging with one another, nature, and chaos."

This reminds me that systems evolve—or fail—based on new information. If a system doesn't adapt to reflect the latest insights, it risks becoming obsolete.

"Information changes systems."