2024-04-23 10:58
Reading Time: 2 min
The most famous problem in game theory is called “The Prisoner’s Dilemma“, and you’ve likely seen it play out in game shows over the years. In ga… Read More
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Mickey Mellen Blog
mickmel.com
Mickey is a partner and Technical Director at GreenMellen Media. He’s been using WordPress for about 16 years, and has helped build hundreds of WordPress-powered sites over the years.
2024-04-22 10:52
Reading Time: 2 min
Can you sit quietly in a room alone? According to many ideas in the book “Unlimited Memory“, it’s a great thing to do.
They start with a quote from… Read More
The Sunday Summary: Generosity, Presentations, Cold Outreach, And The Internet Isn’t Getting Worse
2024-04-21 12:11
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In an effort to help me keep up with everything I post each week, here is my latest “Sunday Summary” of my posts from the week.
Mon, April 15: Don’t… Read More
2024-04-20 11:39
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What is it that you sell? Even if it’s just one product, it’s really more than one thing to your customer.
As an example, in his classic book “The E… Read More
2024-04-19 10:45
Reading Time: 2 min
Over the past few years I’ve shared thoughts on how the world is much better than people think. Murder rates are down, reports of missing children are down, school… Read More
2024-04-18 10:32
Reading Time: 2 min
As with most of you, I get hit with cold outreach all the time. Cold emails, phone calls, LinkedIn connections, people at our door, etc. While they may occasionally have… Read More
2024-04-17 11:26
Reading Time: 2 min
The title of this post may be a little confusing, but spelled out it’s:
Present (“pre-sent”, like giving a presentation) or be present (“pres… Read More
2024-04-16 10:35
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There are many ways to be generous with your clients, and lowering your price can perhaps be a way to do that. In many cases, though, that’s not really what being g… Read More
2024-04-15 11:09
Reading Time: 2 min
When monitoring your website traffic, it’s easy to look at your sources and see that Google has sent you the most traffic, leading you to think you should double d… Read More
2024-04-14 11:57
Reading Time: 2 min
In an effort to help me keep up with everything I post each week, here is my latest “Sunday Summary” of my posts from the week.
Mon, April 8: Your mind ne… Read More
2024-04-13 11:47
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I try to predict the future at times, and my results are hit or miss. With every decision that we make in life, though, we’re being forced to try to predict an unkn… Read More
2024-04-12 11:02
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Automation in a business, particularly in marketing, is a very attractive thing. You can save time and just have messages and connections happen automatically. With that… Read More
2024-04-11 10:44
Reading Time: 2 min
Whenever you’re in the car, I’m sure you see many of the same things as you’re driving — signs on the side of the road (or up on billboards) prom… Read More
2024-04-10 11:08
Reading Time: 3 min
In all of my talk over the years about owning your website with WordPress and owning your notes with Obsidian, I’m well-aware that I had a big hole in that philoso… Read More
2024-04-09 11:18
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There are times when getting to the right answer quickly is important, and everyone should be pushing for the answer. Other times, though, it can be more beneficial to wa… Read More
2024-04-08 11:30
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Depending on what I’m doing at any given time, my mind can wander off a bit. As Kevin Horsley explains in “Unlimited Memory“, though, it never really wa… Read More
2024-04-07 11:03
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In an effort to help me keep up with everything I post each week, here is my latest “Sunday Summary” of my posts from the week.
Mon, April 1: Gmail turns 2… Read More
2024-04-06 11:28
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This was a new one for me, coming from a company that I trust(ed). I received the email below, and I was kind of surprised. I didn’t remember setting another appoin… Read More
2024-04-05 10:56
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Charles Duhigg’s book “Supercommunicators” had a ton of great insights in it, and I encourage you to pick up a copy. I have a handful of thoughts that… Read More
2024-04-04 10:40
Reading Time: 2 min
I’ve noticed that when I meet someone for coffee or lunch, they behave in one of two ways:
Ignore their phone/watch and stay engaged with me.
Look at every n… Read More
2024-04-03 10:52
Reading Time: 2 min
Bluesky is a relatively new social media platform, and at first glance it looks a lot like Twitter. As laid out by Mike Masnick in a great article on Techdirt, Bluesky i… Read More
2024-04-02 11:17
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When you meet someone new, there is undoubtedly part of their personality or their life or their knowledge that is amazing. It might be something you discover right away… Read More
2024-04-01 11:30
Reading Time: 2 min
I mentioned a few days ago that I’m not super happy with Google lately, but a few days before that I shared how I just can’t shake Gmail. The math says I sho… Read More
2024-03-31 12:00
Reading Time: min
In an effort to help me keep up with everything I post each week, here is my latest “Sunday Summary” of my posts from the week.
Mon, March 25: Writing does… Read More
2024-03-30 11:51
Reading Time: 2 min
The list of ways where Google is falling short continues to grow, and none of them have to do with AI. Well, maybe some do, but none that I’m talking about today… Read More
2024-03-29 11:26
Reading Time: 2 min
If I asked you to look back 10 years and talk about how much you’ve grown, you’d likely have many stories to show your increased compassion, knowledge, incom… Read More
2024-03-28 10:51
Reading Time: 2 min
For many years, I’ve been a big proponent of people keeping control of their digital assets. There are three main buckets for this:
Your website, which is why W… Read More
2024-03-27 10:48
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We’re at an amazing point in history, and one that will be changing (for the worse?) as AI continues to develop. Between tools like YouTube (free), summaries of boo… Read More
2024-03-26 10:24
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Over the years I’ve seen ones character compared to reputation, personality, and other related areas. Different sources have slightly different takes on what each o… Read More
2024-03-25 10:55
Reading Time: 2 min
If you know you need to write something and you’re struggling with where to start, a big blank page sitting in front of you can be very intimidating. However, it d… Read More
2024-03-24 11:50
Reading Time: min
In an effort to help me keep up with everything I post each week, here is my latest “Sunday Summary” of my posts from the week.
Mon, March 18: The Serendip… Read More
2024-03-23 11:28
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With almost every book that I read, I read with the intention of digging in deep and then blog posts just happen to come out of it. A good example of that was Adam Grant… Read More
2024-03-22 11:05
Reading Time: 2 min
I’ve mentioned the excellent “Acquired” podcast on here a few times (including learning as leverage and average advice), as it’s a fantastic show… Read More
2024-03-21 10:06
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When I’m in a group or doing a Q&A after a talk, and someone asks a question I’ll often respond with “that’s a great question” as I begi… Read More
2024-03-20 10:01
Reading Time: 2 min
Over the past few weeks I’ve talked to handful of high school students about how AI is being treated at their schools, and the results are largely disappointing (t… Read More
2024-03-19 10:53
Reading Time: 3 min
Google is no longer the darling that it once was. While it’s still clearly a huge, powerful and (generally) helpful company, it’s trending the wrong way… Read More
2024-03-18 10:36
Reading Time: 2 min
Serendipity is one of those things that just seems to kind of happen on its own, similar to luck. However, just like luck, you can do things to make those random bits of… Read More
2024-03-17 12:02
Reading Time: min
In an effort to help me keep up with everything I post each week, here is my latest “Sunday Summary” of my posts from the week.
Mon, March 11: Just do itIf… Read More
2024-03-16 12:28
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20 years ago tomorrow, on March 17, 2004, I published my first blog post. Or least, it’s the oldest that I can find. WordPress was less than a year old, and my firs… Read More
2024-03-15 10:39
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As we head into this election season in the U.S., political nuance is likely to continue to be absent. As I shared a few years ago, moderate viewpoints tend to squashed… Read More
2024-03-14 10:14
Reading Time: 2 min
It’s a weird-sounding name, but you’ve likely seen it happen. You get a weird text from an unknown number, with something fairly innocent like “how are… Read More
2024-03-13 10:45
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I recently shared more thoughts on have routines instead of goals (“Just do it“), but in some cases processes can beat routines. For exercise and learning, I… Read More
2024-03-12 10:47
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While it’s been well-established that users don’t click on the “blog” page for most sites, having those posts can still be incredibly valuable. Th… Read More
2024-03-11 10:55
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As time goes on, I’m finding it easier and easier to “just do” things rather than considering whether they should be done today or tomorrow.
This blo… Read More
2024-03-10 12:42
Reading Time: 2 min
In an effort to help me keep up with everything I post each week, here is my latest “Sunday Summary” of my posts from the week.
Mon, March 4: In the last… Read More
2024-03-09 12:37
Reading Time: 2 min
I was recently listening to an episode of Founders where they were talking about the book “Working Backwards: Insights, Stories, and Secrets from Inside Amazon&ldq&hell…Read More
2024-03-08 11:47
Reading Time: 2 min
We’ve reached the 11th and final question “Tribe of Mentors” by Tim Ferriss (see all previous questions here), and it’s a good one!
When you f… Read More
2024-03-07 11:58
Reading Time: 3 min
Digging into “Tribe of Mentors” by Tim Ferriss (see all previous questions here), he asks:
In the last five years, what have you become better at saying n… Read More
2024-03-06 11:10
Reading Time: 2 min
On to the 9th questions from “Tribe of Mentors” by Tim Ferriss (see all previous questions here). This one is:
What are bad recommendations you hear in yo… Read More
2024-03-05 11:12
Reading Time: 3 min
Today we’re up to the 8th question in “Tribe of Mentors” by Tim Ferriss (see all previous questions here). Today is:
What advice would you give to a… Read More
2024-03-04 11:35
Reading Time: 2 min
Today’s question from “Tribe of Mentors” (see all questions here) by Tim Ferriss is a good one:
In the last five years, what new belief, behavior, o… Read More
2024-03-03 12:43
Reading Time: min
In an effort to help me keep up with everything I post each week, here is my latest “Sunday Summary” of my posts from the week.
Mon, February 26: What is t… Read More
2024-03-02 12:12
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Today we’re on the sixth question that Tim Ferriss asked people in his book “Tribe of Mentors” (you can see all of the questions here):
What is an un… Read More
2024-03-01 11:56
Reading Time: 2 min
Continuing on through the questions from Tim Ferriss in his book “Tribe of Mentors” (see all of the questions here), we’re on to question number five:… Read More
2024-02-29 11:19
Reading Time: 2 min
Today I’m on to the fourth question (see all of the question here) that Tim Ferriss asked people in “Tribe of Mentors”, which was:
If you could have… Read More
2024-02-28 11:44
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The third question to tackle from “Tribe of Mentors” by Tim Ferriss (you can see all of the questions here) is this one:
How has a failure, or apparent fai… Read More
2024-02-27 11:33
Reading Time: 2 min
Today we’re going to dig into the second question (here are all of the questions) from Tim Ferriss’ book “Tribe of Mentors”, which is:
What pu… Read More
2024-02-26 11:18
Reading Time: 3 min
Digging into the first question posed by Tim Ferriss in “Tribe of Mentors” (here are all of his questions), he asks:
What is the book (or books) you&rsquo&hell…Read More
2024-02-25 12:30
Reading Time: min
In an effort to help me keep up with everything I post each week, here is my latest “Sunday Summary” of my posts from the week.
Mon, February 19: You don&r&hell…Read More
2024-02-24 11:12
Reading Time: 2 min
Back in 2017, Tim Ferriss put together a fantastic book titled “Tribe of Mentors“. I say that he “put together” rather than “wrote” t… Read More
2024-02-23 12:14
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When it comes to spam, unbalanced scale is a rapidly increasing problem. It’s bad enough when one person reaches out directly to you with an unsolicited offer, but… Read More
2024-02-22 11:55
Reading Time: 3 min
I just finished the book “Why We Sleep“, and while there weren’t any stunning findings in there, there were a lot of little things that I never knew be… Read More
2024-02-21 10:45
Reading Time: 2 min
The last decade has seen a lot of concern over the effect of social media on teens. Most recently is the U.S. government attempting to pass KOSA (the “Kids Online… Read More
2024-02-20 11:33
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Coca-Cola has a “secret recipe”, but you don’t really hear them talk about it much. In fact, you really never hear them talk about any of their ingredie… Read More
2024-02-19 11:52
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We all have opinions about things in our life, but opinions don’t need to be fixed in stone. If it’s really just an “opinion”, you should be open… Read More
2024-02-18 12:01
Reading Time: min
In an effort to help me keep up with everything I post each week, here is my latest “Sunday Summary” of my posts from the week.
Mon, February 12: 228,000 c… Read More
2024-02-17 12:47
Reading Time: 1 min
Perhaps more than any other area, changing technology generally brings with it a slew of new acronyms and terms. We have things like HTML, DNS, SEO, HTTP, PHP and dozens… Read More
2024-02-16 11:54
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Social media can be a great tool to help your business, but only if you go at it the right way for your intended audience. A common mistake is to use social media simply… Read More
2024-02-15 11:51
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So many of the issues in the world today come from people isolating themselves into groups and then always assuming the worst of the other side. I’ve shared this id… Read More
2024-02-14 11:44
Reading Time: 2 min
When trying to accomplish anything, there are usually a lot of different pieces that need to fall into place. While picking an easy place to start can be a good way to b… Read More
2024-02-13 11:25
Reading Time: 2 min
The “fundamental attribution error” is one of those phrases that I’ve heard a few times, but I never really knew what it meant. It came up on a recent… Read More
2024-02-12 12:22
Reading Time: 2 min
The “calorie” is an interesting unit of measure. We often think of it in terms of nutrition (“this cookie is 200 calories”), which isn’t wr… Read More
2024-02-11 12:44
Reading Time: min
In an effort to help me keep up with everything I post each week, here is my latest “Sunday Summary” of my posts from the week.
Mon, February 5: You can&rs&hell…Read More
2024-02-10 12:50
Reading Time: 2 min
The idea of “the prophet’s dilemma” is interesting to think about. In short, it’s a type of self-defeating prophecy, where the act of predicting… Read More
2024-02-09 11:34
Reading Time: 2 min
Congress is currently working on a bill called the “Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA)”, which sounds good in title, but really isn’t. Danah Boyd has an exc… Read More
2024-02-08 11:34
Reading Time: 2 min
Among other traits, I work hard to be confident in what I believe but also open to new ideas. It can be a weird balance.
There are many reasons why you should show co… Read More
2024-02-07 11:29
Reading Time: 2 min
When something goes wrong, it’s easy to look back and think “it was so obvious that was going to happen, the clues were all there.“
The helpful clue… Read More
2024-02-06 10:35
Reading Time: 2 min
Most of us try to be wise with our money when shopping, and finding a bargain is a great thing! When it comes down to it, though, everything you purchase is a bargain… Read More
2024-02-05 12:20
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A few times on Gary Vaynerchuk’s podcast I’ve heard Gary repeat a very simple phrase: “you can’t hope for consumer reality.“
His push is… Read More
2024-02-04 12:15
Reading Time: min
In an effort to help me keep up with everything I post each week, here is my latest “Sunday Summary” of my posts from the week.
Mon, January 29: Artwork is… Read More
2024-02-03 12:48
Reading Time: min
I spend a good deal of time memorizing information. This could be cards I put in Anki, doing my “Daily Review” in Readwise, or any number of other things. Mem… Read More
2024-02-02 11:15
Reading Time: 2 min
I’m finding that one good measure of a company or service is how easily they’ll let you quit.
If they’re a great company, they make it easy to leave… Read More
2024-02-01 11:33
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I’ve talked a few times on here about the Will Guidara’s fantastic book “Unreasonable Hospitality“. On a recent podcast with Rory Vaden, Will took… Read More
2024-01-31 12:05
Reading Time: 2 min
Most of us are familiar with the amazing power of compound interest when it comes to money. There’s a famous quote (attributed to Einstein, but likely wasn’t… Read More
2024-01-30 12:00
Reading Time: 2 min
I’ve shared a few times on here my desire to repeat myself more often, so I guess this post is kind of a self-fulfilling success!
This really comes from a few d… Read More
2024-01-29 11:42
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I’ve mentioned a few times on here that I’m not a fan of companies that put a “designed by” link in the footer of websites that they create. Googl… Read More
2024-01-28 13:46
Reading Time: min
In an effort to help me keep up with everything I post each week, here is my latest “Sunday Summary” of my posts from the week.
Mon, January 22: Making goo… Read More
2024-01-27 13:12
Reading Time: 2 min
I can be a bit pedantic at times, but I do my best not to because I know that I make frequent mistakes as well. In many cases, I just have to accept that some of the &ld&hell…Read More
2024-01-26 11:03
Reading Time: min
When creating a calendar invite or sending a document, I try to name them with the other person in mind. For example, next week I have an item that someone added to my ca… Read More
2024-01-25 11:15
Reading Time: min
Controlling your temper is something that many people struggle with, and it’s a main thread in much of the stoic writings that you might come across.
For example… Read More
2024-01-24 11:54
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I had an interesting set of conversations on consecutive days last week and it taught me a new phrase.
When chatting with Ali, she talked about how she consistently tr… Read More
2024-01-23 11:25
Reading Time: min
We have a fantastic team at GreenMellen, but that can lead to situations where if someone on the team is doing a great job with their work, it can often go unnoticed… Read More
2024-01-22 12:09
Reading Time: 2 min
In the digital world, there are a lot of ways that companies try to lock you in. They may give you a pop-up when you try to leave a site to entice you to stay. They may… Read More
2024-01-21 12:49
Reading Time: 2 min
In an effort to help me keep up with everything I post each week, here is my latest “Sunday Summary” of my posts from the week.
Mon, January 15: Do you wa… Read More
2024-01-20 13:09
Reading Time: 2 min
I’m a big believer in admitting when you don’t know the answer. That kind of truthfulness in meetings leads to better results, and ideally leads to additiona… Read More
2024-01-19 12:08
Reading Time: 2 min
The psychology of selling makes me kind of sad. I wish that everyone could just price fairly, explain the product honestly, and we’d go from there. That’s cl… Read More
2024-01-18 11:24
Reading Time: 2 min
Charlie Munger shared a humorous story at the USC Law School Commencement in 2007, which goes as follows:
I frequently tell the apocryphal story about how Max Planck… Read More
2024-01-17 11:38
Reading Time: min
In reading Adam Grant’s latest book “Hidden Potential“, he brought up some interesting thoughts related to our role in life as a descendant versus an an… Read More
2024-01-16 11:42
Reading Time: 2 min
We live in an amazing time. Right this very moment, you can summon the knowledge from some of the smartest people who ever lived. Books (or Kindle/Audible) are very inex… Read More
2024-01-15 11:21
Reading Time: 2 min
Writing can be difficult. There are times when you know it needs to be done but you just don’t want to do it (or you don’t have any ideas, or some other excu… Read More
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