August 30, 2026

Interesting vs Exhaustive

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Imagine you’re at a cocktail party or a wedding reception or a barbecue.

The person next to you asks:

“So... what do you do?”

My advice is to have your positioning so focused that you can answer in one short sentence.

Like, five-ish words.

One of the common objections to this recommendation is:

“But but but... there’s so much more to what I do than just that!!!”

Yes! I know. You’re right.

There is ALWAYS more to it than that.

But this is a feature, not a bug.

In a context like this, you want to be INTERESTING, not EXHAUSTIVE.

Being exhaustive is just... well, exhausting.

Exhausting the listener is never in your best interest.

Do them a favor and boil it down to just the most interesting part.

If you can do that, you’ll earn the right to tell them more.

Yours,

—J