Mark Twain once said, “Eat a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.” Brian Tracy adapted this for his productivity book, Eat That Frog! to say, "If you have to eat two frogs, eat the ugliest one first," and "If you have to eat any frog at all, it doesn't pay to sit and look at it for very long.”

What's the difference between a lifestyle boutique and one that is built to scale and sell? Between a commoditized "body shop" and a unique boutique? There are approximately 1.47 million firms in professional services (industry code NAICS 54). Four thousand have reached scale, with more than 250 employees.

As my dad (an architect) always reminded me when I was growing up, clients often want it all — quality, speed, and the best prices. The reality? Pick two. It's nearly impossible to optimize for all at once, so what do you want to be known for as a business?

What is the difference between uniqueness, talent, and onlyness? Nilofer Merchant is here to help us figure out how the room changes when we walk in, how to turn feeling othered or overworked into opportunities to help ourselves and everyone around us shine, and the powerful question that shifted how she leads others.

Today's episode builds on 56: Systems vs. Goals. Now let's talk about how to build smarter systems by looking for measurable loops in your business, then split testing with small experiments. For some of you, this is automatic and already happening, especially if you're familiar with the startup space or the principles of growth hacking. For others, it will be a helpful reminder for you and your team about how to simplify and systematize making improvements in your business.

Writing a book can be a lonely, scary, confusing business...and that's when it's going well. When it's going badly, it's much worse than all of that. In this episode for MBS’ podcast, we share 2 pages of his new book, How to Begin: Start Something That Matters.

Welcome Deep Questions with Cal Newport listeners! I had so much fun recording the "Help me do less!" episode — check it out here if you haven't already :)