The tools we have shapes how we look at solving problems.

That’s why the same challenge gets completely different solutions depending on who’s tackling it.

I’ve spent countless hours watching Vinh Giang content.

One of his best insights is that you should use your voice like a piano.

That most people only use one key when they speak. Same tone. Same pitch. Same volume. It sounds monotone because it is monotone.

A piano has 88 keys for a reason. Learn to use them all.

Like a pianist knows exactly which key creates the feeling they want.

Your voice can do the same.

I used to hang out at this record store when I was younger. Buying cd after cd. Not because I needed them all but because each purchase felt like proof I belonged there. The synthesizer store was the same. I’d walk in and buy something just to have that moment of connection. To be part of the conversation. “What have you bought? Look at this awesome thing.”

We buy our way into communities. The transaction becomes the handshake. The receipt becomes the membership card.

Sometimes the willingness to belong costs more than we planned to spend. But maybe that’s the price of finding your people.

I write a prompt. Claude Code generates a markdown file with a solution. I read it, adapt it to my needs, then check that refined specification into git.

Many developers craft detailed prompts, get generated code back, then delete the prompt and keep only the implementation.

These adapted markdown files contain the real intent. The code contains one possible expression of that intent.

The code will change. The intent remains.

So version control your thinking, not just your implementations.

Sometimes action is the only thing you can do to combat inaction.

The decision itself can get you moving. Most choices allow for course correction along the way.

But it’s harder to pivot while you’re stuck.

Building something terrible still beats consuming something perfect. I can write broken code or record a garbage track and walk away knowing I made something exist.

I’ve never closed Instagram feeling like I accomplished anything.

Creation leaves you with skills and scars.

Consumption just leaves you wondering where the time went.

When you think of developing a new product it is easy to think that underneath a solid UI there is also solid code.

We gather to watch something together. Everyone pulls out their phone.

The shared screen becomes permission for individual escape.

Nobody calls it out because everyone’s doing it. We all maintain this fiction that we spent time together while actually being alone in parallel.

Some behaviors stick around long after the problems they were designed to solve have disappeared. These create some of the biggest change management challenges we face.

Take the keyboard. This oddly arranged collection of keys exists because of a mechanical limitation from over a century ago. Typewriter keys would jam if you typed too quickly on adjacent letters, so the QWERTY layout deliberately slowed typists down.

Why haven’t we escaped this antiquated design in the nearly 40 years since typewriters became obsolete?

Often it’s because these behaviors become so deeply embedded in our culture that we stop questioning whether better alternatives exist. We train the next generation using the same methods without pausing to ask: is this actually the best way?

Brands cannot survive being faceless. AI will flood the market with generic content. Brands need humans to connect.