A newspaper headline of the time put it bluntly: “Has [Sir Arthur] Conan Doyle gone mad?” Well, I suppose that depends on your understanding of madness. Doyle took a piece of media and, with the full force of an exceptional intellect, used it to confirm something he already, desperately needed to be true. Under that definition, who among us isn't mad?

Most professionals default to the summary because it’s what we were taught, what we’re used to seeing, and what feels expected.  A professional summary is grounded in evidence and hard-won experience. But trotting out your accomplishments is not the same thing as making a compelling case. To clarify your value and advocate for the context when you do your best work, you’ve got to think like a brand strategist.

It's not small talk vs. deep talk. It's forced small talk vs. genuine small talk, and both vs. substantive conversation. When small talk is authentic — when you're actually curious about the answer to "how's your day going?" — it works. When it's a performative obligation, it drains us.

An attribute was the single object — occasionally the single gesture or animal — that told a viewer which saint they were looking at. It was visual shorthand, compressed from an entire hagiography into one recognizable element. Catherine’s wheel: the instrument of her attempted martyrdom. Jerome’s lion: the wild animal he calmed in the desert by pulling a thorn from its paw. Stephen’s stones: the instrument of his execution following accusations of blasphemy.

We talk about "trusting our gut" as if it's a single, reliable compass. But Anne-Laure Le Cunff, founder of Ness Labs, makes a crucial distinction. Our "gut feelings" stem from two very different sources: instinct and intuition. Because they feel so similar (fast, automatic, sometimes emotional), we treat them the same. But overlooking the difference can lead to poor decision-making.

Murdle is a daily logic puzzle where you solve murders. It feels like an SAT question meets Murder, She Wrote. You get a grid, a handful of suspects (what Karber does with color names would make Professor Plum blush), and you deduce whodunit using classic logic. It’s a simple format that might go down as just another Wordle knock-off.  But Karber won my heart by demonstrating his love and respect for the classic murder mystery genre.