Thank you for taking the time to write and share this Rich.
I highlighted several lines. The one that sticks with me the most is:
"Ask yourself when you last trusted your own thinking enough to follow it somewhere you couldn't see."
What the above means to me is thinking and writing beyond my high beams. While terrible advice for driving at night, helpful if not mandatory when we are trying build personally or publicly.
Fantastic analogy to the Cognitive Skills, the Premium Thinking, I am after... especially with AI. I love that question, have it written on a Post It just over my monitor...and a legal pad & Blackwing nearby to hit to concepts that surface when I ask it.
What's fun is to take a pic of those scribbles and feed it back into AI and ask, "Work with me on these thoughts and give me a few examples of what I'm not seeing." Which, if course, iterates. 😎👍
Most solopreneurs outsource their thinking to frameworks and gurus, then wonder why their business feels generic. The real competitive edge isn't knowing more, it's trusting your own pattern recognition. When you stop second-guessing your instincts, you move faster and build something that actually matches your strengths.
It's so easy to copy/paste another's success, or prompt thereof. Trusting your own pattern recognition and running with it? That typically defines the innovator/synthesizer. Anfernee, you're my kind of people.
As someone who’s found their voice by shipping half-formed thoughts on Substack and stress-testing ideas with AI in private, this resonates deeply. I started posting here in August last year.
The kindness of the Substack community helps confidence to grow in such a remarkable way. I love that for the most part, if people disagree, they just on walk past, armchair warriors seem to be far fewer. The encouragement found here has been one of the biggest surprises to me - I was too scared to even use my name when I first launched here!
Crazy, right? Strategy requires cognitive resources people typically have already spent by the time they sit down to do it.
You've been answering emails, synthesizing information, drafting documents, organizing your thoughts into presentable form. By the time you get to "what should we actually do," you're running on fumes.
The Cognitive Bandwidth Principle makes the game zero-sum. Every chunk of attention spent on information processing is a chunk unavailable for judgment, pattern recognition, synthesis across domains. The stuff that actually moves the needle.
Like when you turn down the volume in your car because you really have to think, you're naturally freeing resources to do so.
AI changes the math completely by churning on that lower level thinking (Bloom's 1-3) so you can stay in the upper level (Bloom's 4-6) where strategy is formed.
Thank you for taking the time to write and share this Rich.
I highlighted several lines. The one that sticks with me the most is:
"Ask yourself when you last trusted your own thinking enough to follow it somewhere you couldn't see."
What the above means to me is thinking and writing beyond my high beams. While terrible advice for driving at night, helpful if not mandatory when we are trying build personally or publicly.
Fantastic analogy to the Cognitive Skills, the Premium Thinking, I am after... especially with AI. I love that question, have it written on a Post It just over my monitor...and a legal pad & Blackwing nearby to hit to concepts that surface when I ask it.
What's fun is to take a pic of those scribbles and feed it back into AI and ask, "Work with me on these thoughts and give me a few examples of what I'm not seeing." Which, if course, iterates. 😎👍
Most solopreneurs outsource their thinking to frameworks and gurus, then wonder why their business feels generic. The real competitive edge isn't knowing more, it's trusting your own pattern recognition. When you stop second-guessing your instincts, you move faster and build something that actually matches your strengths.
It's so easy to copy/paste another's success, or prompt thereof. Trusting your own pattern recognition and running with it? That typically defines the innovator/synthesizer. Anfernee, you're my kind of people.
🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻
Thanks for challenging us, Rich.
As someone who’s found their voice by shipping half-formed thoughts on Substack and stress-testing ideas with AI in private, this resonates deeply. I started posting here in August last year.
Great to hear, John. It's a beautiful thing, finding your way.
The kindness of the Substack community helps confidence to grow in such a remarkable way. I love that for the most part, if people disagree, they just on walk past, armchair warriors seem to be far fewer. The encouragement found here has been one of the biggest surprises to me - I was too scared to even use my name when I first launched here!
AI creating space for strategy is huge
Crazy, right? Strategy requires cognitive resources people typically have already spent by the time they sit down to do it.
You've been answering emails, synthesizing information, drafting documents, organizing your thoughts into presentable form. By the time you get to "what should we actually do," you're running on fumes.
The Cognitive Bandwidth Principle makes the game zero-sum. Every chunk of attention spent on information processing is a chunk unavailable for judgment, pattern recognition, synthesis across domains. The stuff that actually moves the needle.
Like when you turn down the volume in your car because you really have to think, you're naturally freeing resources to do so.
AI changes the math completely by churning on that lower level thinking (Bloom's 1-3) so you can stay in the upper level (Bloom's 4-6) where strategy is formed.
Love it! You outlined it beautifully
Solid. Thank you.
Small, but attainable, Joe 🙂 Keep it cognitive.