Asides

Ponzi Coaching [en]

Sometimes I get the nagging feeling that everybody (or almost) who used to be a fellow freelance consultant has now drifted into coaching. What is going on here? There seems to be a Ponzi-like dynamic going on, as with all these people giving online courses about how to earn money through your online business. It’s not quite life coaching for life coaches, but sometimes it feels very close: earning money by getting people to give you money so that hopefully they can make money like you’re making money.

Unfortunately, it seems that is where the money is. People are willing to spend money… if it helps their business make more money. And that’s not the kind of gig I want. Am I doomed?

Choice [en]

Earlier today, I was listening to Malcolm Gladwell on the TED Radio Hour podcast. He was talking about choice architecture. In short, how the way we frame the available choices influences decisions (think: opt-in or opt-out, for organ donors for example). James Clear has made me think about this a lot, under the title of “environment design”.

A podcast or two later I’m listening to Fresh Air, about Bannon and Sessions vision for remaking America. Terry Gross and her guest are talking about Breitbart and the kind of coverage it puts forward, namely crimes committed by immigrants.

Do you see the link?

The media landscape we float in, the ideas we’re exposed to, the articles we read — they are the environment in which we make our decisions about what to believe. They are the choice architecture of our beliefs. They follow the path of least resistance. That is why things repeated often enough become truth. Choice architecture.

Note: don’t see a title? Normal, this is my first aside.