Wednesday, 26 February 2025

Seth's Blog : At the speed of judgment

Getting to the conference in Santa Fe isn't difficult. Someone will drive/fly you there. The hard part is deciding to go. And yet, it might take 8 hours to arrive. If they invented teleportation and offered it for free, it would be very clear that where ...
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At the speed of judgment

Getting to the conference in Santa Fe isn’t difficult. Someone will drive/fly you there. The hard part is deciding to go. And yet, it might take 8 hours to arrive.

If they invented teleportation and offered it for free, it would be very clear that where we went would simply depend on where we decided to go, not the mechanics, cost or time it took.

But physical presence is not the driving force in our world now.

In 2025, if you want to learn something, you can. Probably for free, and faster than ever before.

That statement has never been as true as it is now.

Beyond that… with an app like cursor, if you want to write computer code, you can. The hard part is deciding what to build.

But it turns out that deciding is only half of it.

In order to actually make a difference, we have to move no faster than the speed of trust.

Who is giving us the benefit of the doubt? Who have we earned enrollment with? Where is our agency?

Making good decisions with and for a group of people who believe us is called leadership.

We’re often afraid to lead. Afraid of the responsibility. Indoctrinated to let someone else take the wheel and to take the blame.

The easiest way to avoid leadership was to blame all the heavy lifting and resources required.

But in more and more ways, we can lead with nothing but judgment and trust.

If we care.

        

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Tuesday, 25 February 2025

Seth's Blog : Long-term selfish (and the circles of us and now)

Whenever we make a choice, we do our best. We make a decision based on our interests. In other words, it's selfish. So what makes a choice a selfish act worth addressing? There are two circles: the circle of us and the circle of now. A selfish toddler ...
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Long-term selfish (and the circles of us and now)

Whenever we make a choice, we do our best. We make a decision based on our interests. In other words, it’s selfish.

So what makes a choice a selfish act worth addressing?

There are two circles: the circle of us and the circle of now.

A selfish toddler keeps both circles very small. They care about right now, not later. They care about their parents or whomever is in the room. That’s it.

The toddler who draws all over the couch in black marker is having fun right now, and selfishly causing a problem for others, and for the future.

Smoking cigarettes is short-term selfish. The you of the future is unlikely to thank teenager-you for starting.

And raising parrots in your small apartment is a different sort of selfish. It’s not surprising that your neighbors will hope you stop.

You may have noticed that the world keeps getting smaller and it keeps going faster, which means we can see the circles we impact more clearly.

We admire adults who lead, who take the long view, and especially, who consider a larger circle. And thriving organizations and communities create the cultural conditions for people to choose to make their circles include more people and longer time frames.

Successful cultures embrace bigger circles.

        

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