Discover great authors from HEY World

The improv instinct

Last week I was talking with another business owner from a different industry. He was frustrated with an employee who kept asking him what to do if x, y, or z happens. This was a long-time employee who'd been in these situations before, not someone new who was learning the ropes. With this particular employee, it's always the same set ...

Why is paid social media a bad idea?

It'll soon cost $7/month to fully participate on Twitter. Musk has announced they'll start reserving presence in the For You tab solely for paying customers from April 15th, limit participation in polls to just those customers, and soon also give preferential showing in replies as well. Legacy blue-checks will not be spared, and will i...

From Bookstores to Rockets: The Surprising Paths of Elon Musk, Jeff...

It's easy to assume that successful people were born with some inherent talent or advantage that enabled them to achieve greatness. However, the reality is frequently quite different. "Sometimes it takes an outsider," as the saying goes. Take, for example, Elon Musk. He may now be one of the world's foremost experts on rockets and spac...

The Busy Trap: Why Being Busy Is Not A Safe Place For Your Health A...

In today's fast-paced world, being busy has become a badge of honor. We glorify the hustle culture and often feel guilty if we're not constantly working or doing something productive. However, is being busy really a safe place, as we believe it to be? There's no denying that being productive and efficient is important. It helps us achi...

Cut cloud before payroll

Every week seems to offer fresh staff cuts at the big tech companies right now. Several of the giants are already on their second rounds, and few would probably bet against a third after those. But as hard as it is on an individual level – and it's always hard! – there's a silver lining for the economy as a whole: Releasing captive tal...

Angry customers are a gift

The majority of customers will never tell you why they stop buying on their own. In fact, even if pressed, most will just smile, nod, and give you some face-saving reason for how “now is just not the right time” or “we are just going in a different direction”. Because that’s what avoids conflict. Thus, the only time you’re truly allowe...

Don't be a knee-jerk

At most companies, people put together a deck, reserve a room (physical or virtual), and call a meeting to pitch a new idea. If they're lucky, no one interrupts them while they're presenting. When it's over, people react. This is precisely the problem. The person making the pitch has presumably put a lot of time, thought, and energy in...

Compressing a million-dollar commercial into $37,000

Last year, we hired a high-profile ad agency to work on our first-ever branding campaign for Basecamp. They were smart, funny... and entirely out of sync with our budget. So we ended up letting them go, hiring a new head of marketing, and doing it all ourselves. The problem was that our entire marketing budget for 2023 amounted to a "m...

Delegating projects, not tasks

We recently received this email from a REWORK Podcast listener who had a question... “...I think it was in Shape Up that the idea of delegating projects rather than tasks came up. And I'm trying to move this way, of working with my own team. I just wonder if you guys have any tips or help for making that transition, helping team member...

Assets put money in your pocket

I really like how Robert Kiyosaki defined an asset and a liability in his "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" series of books. He says that assets are something that put money in your pocket, whereas liabilities take money out of your pocket. Robert was scrutinized when he said that a person's own house is not an asset because it costs money to keep ...