Appreciate their interests

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Charles Duhigg’s book “Supercommunicators” has many great insights in it, and a big thread through the book is about how to more deeply engage with those that you’re talking with.

A great way to do that is to simply ask more questions about the person you’re with. From the book:

Ask open-ended questions and listen closely. Get people talking about how they see the world and what they value most. Even if you don’t learn, right away, what others are seeking—they might not know themselves—you’ll at least inspire them to listen back. “If you want the other side to appreciate your interests,” Fisher wrote, “begin by demonstrating that you appreciate theirs.”

As I shared a few weeks ago, this can come from the idea of using your gift of curiosity to learn more about others.

That said, it’s easy for people to feel like they did this when they actually do the opposite. In Adam Grant’s “Give and Take“, he shares how people who talk a lot can feel like they understand others:

Logically, learning about the people around you should depend on listening. The less you talk, the more you should discover about the group. But Pennebaker found the opposite: the more you talk, the more you think you’ve learned about the group. By talking like a taker and dominating the conversation, you believe you’ve actually come to know the people around you, even though they barely spoke. In Opening Up, James Pennebaker muses, “Most of us find that communicating our thoughts is a supremely enjoyable learning experience.”

Avoiding that trap is the first key, and then simply “appreciating their interests” is likely to lead to a much better conversation and connection.

The BOOX Note Air4 C

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As time has gone on, my wife and I have felt a stronger and stronger pull to distance ourselves from Amazon. There is a huge list of troubling things about their company (how they treat their employees and vendors, how they steal ideas, various political concerns, etc). They make things very easy to buy, making them hard to completely separate from, but we’re giving it a shot.

Not buying products from Amazon is easy enough. It’s a bit more work, but buying local has many advantages and we enjoy helping out local businesses. The trickier one is the Kindle; I’ve been using one for about 15 years (most recently with the Kindle Scribe), and my wife has one a few years longer than that.

Boox, Kobo, Nook, Supernote, reMarkable…

While leaving Kindle may be tough, there is no shortage of options on the market today. You have dedicated readers from Kobo and Nook, and other e-ink devices from Boox, Supernote, reMarkable and many others. Which to choose?

We were able to narrow it down quite quickly. The reMarkable is great for notes, but not for reading. Kobo and Nook have great devices, but they’re tied to their individual stores. That essentially left the Supernote and Boox devices, as they allow you load multiple apps on them, and Boox seems to have a better focus on reading.

The Boox tablets run a version of Android, so you can load various apps on the tablet. I’ll likely be purchasing most of my books going forward from Kobo, but the fact that I can also run the Nook app (as well as Libby, BookShop, and many others) is fantastic. Plus, I can load the Kindle app on there to still have access to all of the books I’ve purchased over the years.

Which Boox tablet?

Once we decided on Boox, we had to choose the devices that we wanted most. They have a lot of options! I knew I wanted a large tablet with a pen and a backlight, and my wife wanted one similar to her smaller Kindle Paperwhite. I ultimately went with Note Air4 C the and my wife with the Go 6.

There are a lot of videos to walk through the Note Air4 C, but this one is a fairly short (yet comprehensive) overview:

After a few weeks of use, my hunches on the good and the bad (when compared to the Kindle Scribe) were pretty accurate.

  • The Boox has a lot of great apps to choose from. I’ve loaded up the Kindle, Kobo and Nook apps, as well as apps like Readwise, Shortform, and Blinkist. It really is the ultimate reading device!
  • Perhaps too many apps? I need to be careful not to load distractions on there (like social media), because I certainly can.
  • It’s a bit trickier to use. The Kindle just reads books, and now I need to deal with apps and settings and such.
  • The reading experience in the Kindle app on the Boox is about 90% as good as on an actual Kindle device. I knew it wouldn’t be 100%, but I’m quite pleased with how well it works.
  • The battery life is not nearly as good. With heavy use, the Boox will last a few days whereas a Kindle would last weeks. This is a consequence of a more robust operating system.

All in all it’s been a good move! We can support smaller book publishers and now I’m using a more capable device.

If you use an e-ink tablet other than a Kindle, what are you using?

Duplicate content is a good thing

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Around a decade ago, I shared some thoughts on how Google handles duplicate content. In short, while duplicate content generally wasn’t really a good thing, there wasn’t a penalty associated with it or anything. We encouraged people to avoid publishing duplicate content, but it wasn’t a huge deal.

These days things have flipped, and duplicate content can be very helpful.

This video from Rand Fishkin explains what I mean. He shares how he frequently uses the same chunk of text along with the name of his company, and as a result the AI tools are always surfacing his company for that very specific phrase.

In particular, he points out his profile on his website, and how when he speaks at events he always encourages those events to use this profile word-for-word. Included in it is a little blurb about his company, including the words “SparkToro, makers of fine audience research software“. Sure enough, if you go to your AI tool of choice and search for things related to finding “audience research software”, SparkToro usually comes up.

Here’s what I see in ChatGPT:

As Rand points out, though, if you search for phrases around “audience research tools” (which is essentially the same phrase), he doesn’t come up at all. AI tools don’t care as much about synonyms as Google does, and they’re just pattern matching words. This means two things:

  • The specific words that you use to describe your company are very important.
  • Once you’ve decided on the words, getting that text published far and wide will be of great benefit to you.

The second bullet is much easier said than done. Publish blog posts, repost on other platforms like Substack and Medium, share frequently on social media, appear on podcasts, use a PR firm to help get published in other places, etc. The more you get it out there, the more the AI tools will pick up on it.

Then, when people are using those AI tools to do research about companies like yours, you just might be the result that is shown.

Check out Rand’s full (3 minute) video for more.

Our brains are all messy

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I see images like this on social media from time to time, usually with a caption of something like “this is how messy my brain is”.

The truth is, we’re all similar to that by default — it’s just how we’re wired. Memory expert Ron White shared a video along the same lines, showing thoughts and memories coming in like sheets of paper getting piled up on the floor.

As he shares in the video, though, it doesn’t have to be that way. Some people thrive in that kind of chaos, but most of us wish that memories stayed a bit more organized and easy to access.

There’s no simple solution, but things like memorization apps and memory palaces can help quite a bit. If you want to take the time to organize your brain, you can do it.

Another good example is Sabrina Cruz. In the video below she explains how truly awful her memory is for day-to-day things, so she worked to improve it and eventually memorized the first 3,141 digits of pi! This wasn’t some gimmick or secret trick, but simply a skill that she worked to develop over the course of a few months. It’s a very interesting and well-done video.

I’m not suggesting that you go memorize 3,141 digits of pi (I mean, you can if you want to), but just know that your “messy brain” and “terrible memory” are things that we all experience. Don’t use those ideas as excuses, and know that you can choose to improve them if you decide to put in the effort.

The Sunday Summary: Attempting perfection, memory palaces, and dreaming small

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In an effort to help me keep up with everything I post each week, here is my latest “Sunday Summary” of my posts from the week.

Mon, February 24: Attempt Perfection
“Perfection is what you are striving for, but perfection is an impossibility. However, striving for perfection is not an impossibility. Do the best you can under the conditions that exist. That is what counts.”

Tue, February 25: Go download all of your Kindle books today
Amazon made some changes to how you can download your Kindle books for use on other devices, and the chance to do that went away after February 26.

Wed, February 26: The power of memory palaces
The idea of a “memory palace” has been around for centuries, and I’ve been loosely trying to use them for a few years. Like many things, though, just trying to use them a little bit meant that I really wasn’t using them at all. I’ve finally cracked down and dug in, and I’m finding some amazing uses for them!

Thu, February 27: Empathy doesn’t require agreement
“The beauty of empathy is that it doesn’t demand that you agree with the other person’s ideas”

Fri, February 28: Dream Small
Sometimes thinking too big can lead to inaction.

Sat, March 1: Learn processes at a deep level before you try to fix anything
“You need to be nimble and produce content our way, not the way you were taught before. If you want the highest probability of success, I beg you to learn why we do what we do at a deep level before you try to fix anything.”

I hope you found some value in this. If you ever have questions, ideas, or disagreements regarding anything I write, please don’t hesitate to reach out.

Learn processes at a deep level before you try to fix anything

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It can be tempting to dive into a new organization and start making changes. At times that may be good, but generally you’d be wise to wait to fully understand what’s happening before trying to shake things up.

In a recent episode of the Founders podcast, the host was talking about the popular YouTube star MrBeast and what makes him so successful. In part, MrBeast shared this:

“You need to be nimble and produce content our way, not the way you were taught before. If you want the highest probability of success, I beg you to learn why we do what we do at a deep level before you try to fix anything.”

MrBeast has become wildly popular after many years (and thousands of videos) of trial and error to get where he is. He hires great folks, but he always encourages them to learn his way of doing things before they try to make changes.

It reminds me of the concept of Chesterton’s Fence, which can be summarized as simply “Do not remove a fence until you know why it was put up in the first place”.

You may have some great ideas that will make a positive impact, but the better you can understand the organization first, the more likely your new idea will succeed.

Dream Small

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I was recently reading about the failure of the Humane AI Pin, and it made me think of Jeff Hilimire’s new book “Dream Small“, which is being released today.

The book is fantastic, and is a very short read (77 pages). It shares how “the smallest of actions can create the largest ripples” and it’s well worth an hour of your time to read it. Here’s a good snippet that showcases the focus of the book, from the middle of a conversation between “Charles” and “Will”:

“One thing that Stanley pointed out to me was that when they helped a nonprofit, no matter the size of the effort or the charity itself, he felt like he was doing purposeful work. He said he tried to get other agencies to do the same, but they’d always start by focusing on how big of an impact they could have, and they’d spin up a committee and make plans, and … it would never happen.” “Interesting,” Will said. “So the fact that they were thinking so big ultimately stalled them from making any progress at all. That’s part of my problem, too.”

Big dreams can be amazing, but it’s often better to start small and build from there.

The Humane AI Pin

The Humane AI Pin had some bold ideas, and that’s essentially what killed it. They tried to replace your phone instead of working with it, but it wasn’t nearly capable enough to do that. As a result, you had a separate device, with a separate phone number, and a separate monthly bill. I appreciate what they were trying to do, as some day there may be a device like this that indeed replaces your phone, but it’s far too early for that. Their bold approach simply wasn’t applicable today.

Humane should have taken the better approach to “dream small”.

The Meta Ray-Ban glasses are a perfect example of this. They’re fantastic glasses with great features, but they work with your phone instead of trying to replace it. When I’m wearing them I get a handy camera, speakers, and AI tools, all working in conjunction with my phone. For this day and age, that’s perfect.

We’ll see what comes in future years for tech, but for today I encourage you to grab a copy of Jeff’s book and appreciate the amazing power in dreaming just a little bit smaller.

Empathy doesn’t require agreement

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I talk about empathy quite a lot (here are 160+ other posts on it), as I feel it’s one of the most important skills we can develop. Understanding the feelings and experiences of others is one of the best ways to connect and learn.

One of my favorite books from the past few years is Mónica Guzmán’s “I Never Thought of it That Way“, which explores ways to better understand those around us, particularly those that we disagree with. Her main premise of the book is:

“That’s because, to be totally frank with you (and if it isn’t already obvious), one of my deepest personal convictions in life is that understanding the people who confound us is always, always worth it.”

When recently digging back into Chris Voss’ “Never Split the Difference“, he had a similar take. His goal comes from the angle of negotiation, and he puts a nice twist on it, saying:

“The beauty of empathy is that it doesn’t demand that you agree with the other person’s ideas”

Guzmán thinks similarly in her book. She encourages you to work hard to understand the other person, but that doesn’t mean you need to agree with them. You should work to understand and see things from the other person’s point of view and it’ll really open up your eyes, but that doesn’t mean you need to agree with them at all.

The power of memory palaces

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The idea of a “memory palace” has been around for centuries, and I’ve been loosely trying to use them for a few years. Like many things, though, just trying to use them a little bit meant that I really wasn’t using them at all. I’ve finally cracked down and dug in, and I’m finding some amazing uses for them!

Memory palaces are best for helping you remember a list of items. There are other techniques for remembering text word-for-word (like the app I shared a few weeks ago), and other techniques for remembering names and faces (which I’ll share in the coming weeks), but memory palaces generally focus on lists.

If you’re not familiar with a memory palace for remembering things, the overall concept is fairly simple:

  • Think of a place that you know well, like your house, a friends house, or even an area from a video game or movie that you know very well.
  • Pick one, and slowly walk through it in your mind. Look for large items (chair, refrigerator, TV, etc) as you go through it. Walk it a few times in your mind until you have a consistent pattern (in the front door, notice the chair, then go to the sofa, then to the TV, etc).
  • Now write it down and number the items.

That’s a memory palace! Now, to use it to actually remember some items, you need to walk back through it in your mind but assign items to each place.

Here’s a short video of me showing how it could be done with “The 6 Principles of Persuasion” and The Ten Commandments:

How many palaces?

As I’ve been digging into this, the question of “how many palaces should I have?” or “is it ok to reuse a palace for multiple lists?” show up, and the answers are varied. My thoughts are:

  • Create a bunch of palaces. Once you get going, it only takes a few minutes to walk through, find some items, and make a list.
  • Don’t reuse them very much, if ever.

I struggled for a bit to come up with other ideas for palaces, so here are some that I’m using:

  • My house
  • The house I grew up in
  • My mother-in-law’s house
  • My business partner’s house
  • Our office
  • Our previous office
  • Various restaurants that we visit
  • Various business meeting facilities
  • The high school where I mentor a student every Friday
  • The school district office where I have a meeting every month or two
  • Church
  • The UPS Store that I’m at far too often

Beyond those, you could try:

  • Locations from a video game that you frequently play.
  • Locations from a movie or TV show that you’re very familiar with.
  • Driving down a specific street.
  • A local park
  • A museum or stadium

The list is endless! The key is to choose locations that you can imagine in your head very clearly, and then briefly write down the path you walk through it. For example, the first five items when I walk into my house are:

  1. The table my the front door.
  2. The french doors that lead to my office.
  3. The old doorbell box on the wall.
  4. A tall wooden mirror.
  5. The bannister that leads upstairs.

For most locations, I just have 5-10 items total, but for my house I’ve done five in every room, so I can build a huge list in there if I need to.

This is one of those things that takes a lot of work before you see any results, but once you get it going it can be magical! Have you ever done this before?

Go download all of your Kindle books today

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Amazon is making a big change to Kindle that probably won’t impact you directly yet, but it may impact you in the future — and the solution needs to happen today.

For years, you’ve been able to download your Kindle books for use on other devices. I never really have, as the Kindle ecosystem is quite smooth, but the option as been there. As of tomorrow (Feb 26, 2025) that option is going away. As a result, whether you think you need to or not, I strongly suggest that you download all of your books and tuck them away for safekeeping in case you want them later.

Downloading them is simple, but a bit time-consuming. To start, go to your Content Library on Amazon by clicking “Accounts & Lists” > Content Library > Books” (this link should take you directly there). To the right of each book is a “more actions” button, and in that list is “Download and transfer via USB”. Don’t let that scare you, as you’re really just downloading it to your computer.

Now the fun begins — go one at a time and download each book. Fortunately, they’re very small files (average of 1-2MB each) so it’s super quick downloads. Drop them in a folder, and then just save that folder in Dropbox or Google Drive or somewhere for later use.

There are three things to know about this:

  • These are your books, and this is the way to actually own them. If you don’t do this today, you’ll never be able to in the future.
  • The format that you download the books in isn’t particularly helpful, but it gives you control. If you want to read your books elsewhere in the future, you can use a tool like Calibre to convert them into other file formats.
  • This gives you the ability to share books with friends (which is likely why Amazon is cutting it off), but I encourage you not to do that. I believe in rewarding authors for their work, so let’s not steal from them. I’m simply doing this so that I can read the books that I purchased on any device that I want in the future.

If you get stuck, this article from PC Magazine should help a bit. Happy reading!