I live in Colorado. Not New York. Not San Francisco. Not London. Colorado.
People ask why. The answer is in the work.
The coastal trap
On the coasts, everything moves fast. Trends compound. The strategy conversation becomes about what's next, what's hot, what's trending on LinkedIn this week.
That's not strategy. That's fashion.
What distance gives you
Living in Colorado, I think about first principles. Not trends. Not what the agency world is buzzing about. The fundamentals.
- What does this company actually own?
- What game are they playing?
- What's true about their customers? Not what's trendy. What's true?
The mountains help
There's something about living near things that don't change. Mountains, weather, silence. It makes you better at identifying what does change and what doesn't.
Strategy is about the things that don't change. Brands. Competitive structures. Human nature. Those are deep problems.
Trends are shallow. Problems are deep. I'd rather work on deep ones.