Author of Simple Marketing for Smart People | Helping technical founders build the commercial argument | JMU Duke | BJCP Beer Judge | Eastern-leaning Catholic
San Diego, CA
Joined September 2020
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Art hasn't looked the same since I learned to see it the way Jonathan does.
Even if you're not Christian, I recommend watching his YouTube videos about art and architecture.
You'll see the world differently.
The fractal nature of Imago Dei.
Friends, when the Pharisees test Jesus about paying taxes to Rome, he asks them whose image is on the Roman coin, then says, “Repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.” What is the implied truth?
The image on the coin is more than simply Caesar; it is God’s image in Caesar—not because of who Caesar is but because all human beings are made in the image and likeness of God.
Thus, the coin belongs to Caesar, but he—along with all things—belongs to God.
San Diegans, for local talk, I'm more active on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/billybroas/
Will also be posting more on other topics here on X.
Rooting for all of you.
A very short story about my return to confession after 30 years.
newsletter.fractalfaithmedia…
Imagine aliens came to Earth and studied how we talk about love.
Which group of phrases do you think they'd encounter more often?
Group 1:
"Protect your peace."
"You don't owe anyone anything."
"Cut out people who drain your energy."
"Never settle."
"Choose yourself."
Group 2:
"Love them even when it's difficult."
"Make sacrifices for the people you love."
"Show up even when it's inconvenient."
"Keep your promises, even when it's hard."
"Put someone else's needs before your own."
Which group better captures the spirit of our times?
What might that tell them about what our culture values?
A great opportunity to help bring an important book into the world.
If a marketing teaching or tactic feels manipulative, but you can't pin down why, try asking:
Does this engage with a customer's free will, or attempt to bypass it?
Most modern marketing advice attempts to bypass it.
If you enjoyed Simple Marketing for Smart People, I started a YouTube channel. I'm doing a series of videos right now based on the main concepts in the book.
Check them out here: youtube.com/@thefivelightbul…
I initially signed up for Atticus as a reader.
I saw their authors: Reid Hoffman, Seth Godin, Mark Manson, and Chase Jarvis.
So, I emailed to ask whether they would include Simple Marketing for Smart People. They asked if I owned the copyright. I said yes, and we pushed it through quickly.
Sometimes all you need to do is ask.
Atticus lets you read or listen to a book while asking an AI questions about the material as you go. I find myself doing this constantly with books I'm reading. Readers tell me they do the same with SMSP.
It made sense to be there.
On the new Spotify logo...
I honestly didn't know it was a new logo. I thought the app failed to download to my phone, it was so small and broken-looking.
Now that I've seen it enlarged—big fan.
Too bad it doesn't scale down well.
From now on when building apps with Claude Code, I'll send different agents to review.
Sonnet found a one-line difference in Opus' plan that would have been a hard-to-debug issue.
Good opportunity to join Tiago and combine BASB with AI.
The frontier of AI is already too vast and moving too quickly for any one person to keep track of alone
I say this as someone who spends most of my working hours immersed in it. It's impossible to keep up, even with the help of AI itself
So you have 2 options:
1. Narrow your focus to a small slice and accept you're missing the rest
2. Leverage other humans to learn faster and cover more ground
Most people default to option 2 by scrolling social media or YouTube
But that approach is too open, too porous. How do you know if what you're seeing is trustworthy? How do you know it applies to your situation?
Even if the content is solid, you still need an organizing framework and a shared language to make sense of it. You need people who keep showing up, who have skin in the game, who are working through the same problems you are
That's what we're building in The AI Second Brain. The program is based on hands-on experiments, not rigid dogma
I update what I teach in near real-time based on what's happening in the AI world
Your fellow participants share their own wins and failures openly. And the community lasts well beyond the three weeks
AI is not a one-time project. It's a new paradigm, and it's too big to figure out on your own
Founding cohort: April 15 to May 1. Enrollment closes Monday, April 13
I'm reading Orthodoxy, and Chesterton is currently blowing my mind.
Here's one of his ideas that I can't stop thinking about…
Some things in this world are logically necessary:
1+1=2
If my dad is older than me, then I must be younger than my dad. There's no way around it.
But not everything works like that.
There's no logical reason an apple has to grow from a tree. No logical reason an egg has to come from a chicken.
Those things happen to be true, but they didn't have to be.
You could imagine a world where apples grew from the ground, or chickens hatched from trees, and nothing in logic would stop you.
Fairy tales never forgot this.
When a man turns into a bear, we call it magic. But Chesterton's point is: an apple growing from a tree is also magic. We've just gotten so used to it that we forgot.
Science doesn't help here…
When science says "apples fall because of gravity," it names the pattern but it doesn't explain why the pattern exists.
The fairy tale witch is actually more honest. She just says: that's the spell. She doesn't pretend to know why.
The proper response to an apple on a tree isn't "of course." It's wonder.
God didn't have to make it this way, yet he chose to.
The sun rises every morning. And every morning, as Chesterton puts it, God says to the sun:
“Do it again.”
A personal post… I’m now writing a faith-based newsletter on Substack called Fractal Faith.
It’s about my journey from atheist to Christian, and how that’s changed the way I see everything.
If you're curious, the first two articles are live. Link in the comments.
Read an article on Fractal Faith and if you like it, consider subscribing: newsletter.fractalfaithmedia…
I'm reading Orthodoxy by GK Chesterton as book #2 in "The Year of Chesterton."
Huge plus: It's public domain, so I got a txt file of the entire book to accompany the paperback.
Using the txt file with Claude helps me understand the book (Chesteron is difficult).
Claude also relates the concepts in the book back to other authors and my own IP. It can do this because Claude has access to my Obsidian vaults, which is my second brain (thanks @fortelabs ).
For example... "Claude, read this line from Orthodoxy. Have I written about this?"
"Yes, this is similar to a point you made in your manifesto... "
Loving this way of reading.