If you ask an economist why shops are crowded during a sale (items at discounted prices), the knee-jerk response will be, ‘Because the prices are lower.’ But as British behavioural scientist Rory Sutherland pointed out, there’s likely more to it.
Perhaps the bustling environment and the presence of other shoppers create a sense of urgency and excitement. Or maybe it’s the limited-time nature of the sale, making customers feel they’re getting a unique opportunity.
It’s easy to settle for the most obvious explanation, but often, the real reasons are more nuanced and intriguing.
Highlights of the Month
- 30 lessons in 30 years of ministry with Pastor Poju + 100 Days of Discipleship with Apostle Iren
- I took spontaneous trips to see a few friends. I should do more.
- I attended a Sporting Lagos Town hall meeting and learned a lot about how Shola Akinlade, co-founder and CEO of Paystack, is thinking about running the club.
Just because I like the gif
Noteworthy
📚 Powerful: Building a Culture of Freedom and Responsibility – Patty McCord
“This book is not a memoir of the building of Netflix. It is a guide to building a high-performance culture that can meet the challenges of today’s rapid pace of change in business, written for team leaders at all levels.”
📚A Beautiful Constraint: How To Transform Your Limitations Into Advantages, and Why It’s Everyone’s Business – Adam Morgan
“Constraints have a bad rap. Constraint is, by definition, a negative thing. Its imposition prevents us from acting as we would like to, because it restricts us in some important way. Constraints hold us down, knock us back, make us fail. “Don’t fence me in,” the old song says: if you want me to show what I can do, then leave me unconstrained.
This book’s aim is to show how and why the opposite is true. How constraints can be fertile, enabling, and desirable.”
📚 The Long View: Why We Need to Transform How the World Sees Time – Richard Fisher
“In a time-blinkered age, all modes of thinking are shaped primarily by present-day concerns, meaning the long view is often seen only through the lens of satisfying current needs, increasing profit or winning political battles. Or as the psychologist Daniel Gilbert once put it: ‘If the present lightly colours our remembered pasts, it thoroughly infuses our imagined futures.”
So how can we get people to accept a new idea? Show how it is a natural extension of the things they already believe.
🗞️The Newsletter Advice I Give Again and Again
Everyone’s newsletter struggles are pretty similar. Here’s a list of advice, Dan Oshinsky, former Director of Newsletters at The New Yorker and Buzzfeed, has to help solve your biggest problems.
📽️Innovating Africa Documentary: The Rise of Tech in Nigeria
An insightful documentary on the tech scene in Nigeria.
+ The Innovators Building Africa’s Thriving Tech Scene | Peace Itimi
🎧 Let’s Make This More Interesting — The Challenger Project
In this podcast, Adam Morgan speaks to fascinating people who excel at engaging their audience – be they distracted social scrollers, bored schoolchildren or cynical CEOs – and learns from them how we can all be much more interesting.
🎧 Uncensored CMO | The Mischief mindset behind the most creative agency in the US with Greg Hahn
Mischief is one of the most creative branding agencies, a visit to their website says it all.
Quote 💭
Perseverance is not a long race; it is many short races one after the other.
– Walter Elliot
Thanks for reading. See you on September 29th.