#113 – Magic & Speed

Good morning everyone,

Hope you’re having a great week!

Let’s jump in.

read online on my website 

read time 3 minutes 

#113 at a Glance:

• Quote: Understanding others vs understanding yourself.

• Podcast: Mark Bouris x Andrea Clarke.

• Interesting Phenomenon: How Chewy creates magic.

• Article: Speed matters.

• Tweet: The importance of doing hard things.

Quote I’ve been thinking about:

Podcast I listened to:

Straight Talk with Mark Bouris #198 - Andrea Clarke

Andrea Clarke is an author, former TV journalist turned humanitarian, and now a leadership coach helping executives stay relevant in a rapidly changing world.

This was a thought-provoking chat about the signals that various forms of communication carry, the importance of thinking 5 steps ahead to give yourself optionality, and how leaders can effectively navigate a crisis to manage business and reputational risk.

Definitely worth a listen.

Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube.

[Duration: 58 minutes]

Interesting Phenomenon I came across:

How Chewy Creates Magic 

Chewy is a US-based pet food and supplies company.

One of their USP’s is that they offer a subscription-based dog food service.

You pay a monthly fee, and all of the nutrients that your dog will need over the next 4-week period arrive at your doorstep like clockwork.

The thing about dogs is that they, sadly and like all living organisms, eventually die.

And the last thing you think about immediately after your loyal friend has passed is to log onto your Chewy account and cancel your subscription.

Subsequently, as you can imagine, there’s nothing sadder than getting your routine delivery less than 28 days after your dog has in fact passed away.

So when customers then ultimately go to cancel their subscription, Chewy has an automated, gratuitous flower delivery that arrives at their door 2 days later:

That’s magic.

And here’s the thing about people who have dogs:

70-80% of dog owners eventually get another one.

And who do you think they’re going to get their pet food from?

The company that sent them flowers.

A measly $25 expense by Chewy can all but guarantee lifetime customer loyalty.

Absolute magic.

What are the things that other businesses (perhaps including yours) can do to create similar moments of magic and brand loyalty?

(h/t – Ken Coleman via Instagram and thanks to Jonah for sharing!)

Article I read:

Speed matters: Why working quickly is more important than it seems

A great piece on the importance of speed and the dopaminergic feedback loop that gets created when we gain momentum.

“Slowness seems to make a special contribution to this picture in our heads. Time is especially valuable. So as we learn that a task is slow, an especial cost accrues to it. Whenever we think of doing the task again, we see how expensive it is, and bail.

That's why speed matters.”

“Push yourself to go faster than you think is healthy. That's because the task will come to cost less in your mind; it'll have a lower activation energy. So you'll do it more. And as you do it more (as long as you're doing it deliberately), you'll get better. Eventually you'll be both fast and good.”

Check out the blog by James Somers here.

[Read time: 3 minutes]

Tweet I liked:

The Importance of Doing Hard Things

Thanks for reading! Grateful for your support.

Stay hungry, stay humble, stay curious. ⚡

If you enjoyed this newsletter, it would mean the world if you could forward it to a friend or send them my website.

This goes a long way to helping me reach more people :)

See you in the next one,

Dimi

(P.S. the best ways to get in touch with me are via email or LinkedIn).