That idea is the foundation of my new book, Everybody Has Something to Hide: Why and How to Use Signal to Preserve Your Privacy, Security, and Well-Being, co-written with Madisun Nuismer.

And today, I’m giving away a free EPUB version on my website—including both English and Spanish in one edition.

You can download it here.

You’ve probably heard about Signal in the news recently, especially after government officials misused it. If nothing else, this book will help you avoid making the same mistakes.

But this isn’t a book for spies, hackers, or conspiracy theorists. It’s for normal people.

People who text their family. Doctors protecting patient conversations. Journalists protecting sources. Lawyers preserving confidentiality. Educators communicating without surveillance. Activists organizing safely. Parents sharing financial information. Anyone who wants a little more control over their digital life.

The book explains what Signal is, how it works, what it protects, and what it doesn’t. We cover setup, disappearing messages, verification, backups, group chats, screen security, and the small mistakes that can expose sensitive information.

Most importantly, we make the case that secure communication is not extreme or political. It’s modern hygiene.

You lock your front door. You wear a seatbelt. You should also understand how to communicate securely.

You do not need to disappear from society. You simply need better tools and a better understanding.

I hope this book gives you both.

Mahalo,

Guy Kawasaki

In this episode, he explains why impact and fulfillment often leave people unsatisfied and introduces a more grounded approach rooted in flow, presence, and everyday experiences of aliveness.

Drawing from his new book How to Live a Meaningful Life, he offers practical mindsets like radical acceptance and availability that shift how we engage with reality.

The conversation makes one thing clear: meaning isn’t a destination or a single answer—it’s something you actively generate through how you live. The key lesson: stop solving for meaning and start experiencing it.

Listen to the conversation here!

Mahalo!

Guy

Friction and irritation show up in small ways. Slow responses, unclear communication, missed expectations, or unnecessary complexity all create drag. None of these are catastrophic on their own, but together they make collaboration heavier than it needs to be. Over time, people start avoiding friction and irritation, even if the talent is high.

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Redefine What It Means to Add Value

Being easy to work with doesn’t mean being passive or agreeable. It means reducing unnecessary effort for the people around you. Clarity, responsiveness, and follow-through are forms of value that rarely show up on a résumé but matter in every interaction.

Low-friction people make progress feel natural. They anticipate questions, close loops, and remove ambiguity before it slows things down. Instead of creating more decisions, they simplify them. That kind of reliability builds trust quickly.

Communicate with Precision

Most friction is communication friction. Vague updates, delayed replies, and misaligned expectations force others to fill in gaps. That creates confusion, rework, and sometimes unnecessary tension.

Clear communication reduces all of that. Saying what you mean, confirming understanding, and sharing context upfront make collaboration smoother. It also signals respect for other people’s time and attention.

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Follow Through Consistently

Nothing creates more friction than uncertainty about whether something will get done. When commitments are unclear or unreliable, people compensate by checking in, double-confirming, or doing extra work themselves. That slows everything down.

Consistency removes that burden. When people know you will deliver what you said, when you said it, they stop managing around you. Trust grows not from big promises, but from small promises kept repeatedly.

Make Decisions Easier for Others

High-friction people push complexity outward. They escalate decisions, defer responsibility, or present problems without direction. That forces others to do the hard thinking, which creates bottlenecks.

Low-friction people do the opposite. They bring options, make recommendations, and frame decisions clearly. Even when they don’t have the final authority, they make it easier for others to decide. That accelerates momentum across the team.

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Compound Reliability Over Time

Talent might get you noticed, but ease of collaboration determines whether you’re invited back. People gravitate toward those who make work feel lighter, not heavier. Over time, that preference becomes a pattern.

Being easy to work with is not a soft skill; it’s a strategic advantage. It reduces friction and irritation, increases trust, and speeds up execution. In the long run, low-friction/low-irritation people win because everyone wants to keep working with them.

Mahalo,
Guy

I am providing you with this guide to help you plan a trip to Honolulu. This is everything you need to know about where to eat, work, stay, shop, surf, and see.

Mahalo!

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Eat

• Koko Head Cafe (breakfast, go at 7 to get right in). The most innovative breakfast menu I’ve encountered. http://kokoheadcafe.com/

• Foodland at Ala Moana Center. https://www.foodland.com/about-foodland-farms-ala-moana. I could buy groceries and food there every day… Everyone loves the poke but those really in-the-know go for the chocolate haupia Ted’s Pies.

• Foodland too far? There’s Waikiki Market across the street from Target at the International Marketplace. You’ll think you’re in Foodland for good reason: same owners.

• Visiting from the land of the rising sun? There’s Mitsuwa Marketplace in the International Marketplace for you. Come to find out, there’s a Mitsuwa in Texas, Illinois, and New Jersey too. Go figure.

• Roy’s. https://www.royyamaguchi.com. Center of the universe for Asian fusion. Order a chocolate soufflé as soon as you sit down. For the purists, jump in a car and go to the original Roy’s in Hawaii Kai, even though he has two restaurants in Waikiki.

• What better way to complement a blow-out dinner than a blow-out brunch the next day? Halekulani’s House Without a Key. 7:00 am to 2:00 pm.

• Not flashy, just great sushi. You might feel like you’re in Japan in a yakuza hangout which, IMHO, enhances the experience. Akasaka.

• Sekiya’s Restaurant & Delicatessen. Across from Kaimuki High School. Old-school, simple, and inexpensive but as good Japanese/local cuisine as you’ll find in Hawaii. You are likely to be the only Haole in there, but that’s a sign that the food is ono.

• A little upscale from Sekiya is Gyotaku. Japanese family food. Again, you might be the only Haole in there. Again, that’s a good sign.

• Leonard’s Bakery. Often a long line, but it moves fast. Purists like only the plain malasadas, but at least try the haupia and chocolate varieties. You won’t be the only Haole at Leonard’s because malasadas transcend race.

• Speaking of bakeries, there is also Diamondhead Bakery. The blueberry cream cheese scone will change your life. The li-hing prunes and apricots are right up there too.

• Waiola Shave Ice. No need to go to the North Shore, brah. Best shave ice is one mile from Waikiki.

• Zippy’s. They are all over the place. Think upscale, local-food Denny’s. Hard to go wrong with any of them. Zip mein is a good place to start.

• Da Cove (açaí bowl, specifically the “Hawaiian” is the one to get) http://dacove.com/

• Rainbow Drive Inn. Plate lunches of the gods

• Kapiolani College Farmers Market. Saturday mornings. Because farmers’ markets is stuff white people like…

• Koala Moa. Huli huli chicken of the gods. Be sure to get some takuwan too.

• If you’re going to Koala Moa, then make it a complete trip and stop at Nisshodo Mochi for mochi and manju.

• Honolulu Kitchen. Deep-fried manapua. Wrap your mind around that combination of words.

• On the way to Kualoa Ranch, there is a fresh coconut place called Kualoa Coconut Man. 48-343 Kamehameha Highway (ocean side). Best coconuts I’ve ever had.

Work/Coffee

• Yes, you may have to work a few hours while in paradise. If you need a quiet place with great WiFi, printing, monitors, and stand-up desks, go to Hub Coworking Hawaii. There’s one in Waikiki in the International Marketplace, 2nd floor, next to Mitsuwa. Join in advance and install its app to get in because it’s unattended.

• More Waikiki. Get your coffee at Honolulu Coffee in the Moana Surfrider, then work in the hotel’s lobby. This is the most work conducive lobby in Hawaii. There’s also Kona Coffee Purveyors in the International Marketplace; there’s always a line there and seldom a place to work, so get your coffee there and go work at Hub Coworking upstairs.

• Cafe Rise. Fastest coffee-shop Wi-Fi I’ve found anywhere in the world. 1 gigabit! Quiet. Lots of plugs. Lots of parking. I’m not a coffee snob, so I cannot attest to the quality, but give me fast Wi-Fi, plugs, parking, and quiet, and I’m a happy camper.

• Ars Cafe. Artsy coffee shop feel, but no Wi-Fi and it gets warm inside. A little bit of an attitude–as opposed to Aloha spirit.

• Aloha Pineapple Cafe. Just up the street. Good Wi-Fi. Nice breeze. Secret parking in the back. Friendly.

• Talk Kaimuki. Youthful/student vibe that is energizing.

• Ala Moana Center. Honolulu Coffee and Island Brew Coffeehouse. Love the communal table in the back. Nordstrom Ebar. Luckily, because inside seating is limited, great tables outside where you can stare at the Uniqlo window.

• Kakaako. Morning Brew is nice. Lots of space.

Stay

• If surfing matters and money doesn’t, I would stay at the Moana Surfrider. You can be at Canoes or Queens literally in seconds. If only it would store your board. And don’t forget the great lobby area to work in the morning.

• If money matters, then there’s the Kaimana. It’s located at the far end of Waikiki. This means it’s not in the tourist madness. First, the bad news: older hotel, no fitness center, decrepit laundry room. Good news: friendliest, most helpful staff. Small, so you’re not going up 30 floors and waiting fifteen minutes for your car. They will keep your surfboard in the storage room–try that at most hotels in Waikiki. Reasonable price. Unbeatable beachfront views. And, best of all, it’s close to several fun surf spots: Tongg’s, Publics, Queens, and Canoes.

• If surfing and money both don’t matter, there’s also the Halekulani. It’s at the Ewa end of Waikiki, far from my favorite breaks. No place to store your board. Very upscale. Diet-busting brunch, as I mentioned before. This is a legitimate destination hotel.

• Another place, if surfing and money don’t matter, is the Ritz-Carlton Residences. What do I need to say? It’s a Ritz-Carlton. Kitchenette. Washer/dryer. And there’s a storage room for boards and bikes. It’s just not on the beach, and it’s a larger hotel, so more waiting for elevators and valet. Staff are very accommodating and friendly though.

• Then there’s the Renaissance. Off the beach, across the street from Ala Moana Center on the mountainside. Walking distance to Foodland. Stay in the “residence” part (as opposed to the “hotel” part), there’s a kitchenette and a washer/dryer. Nice pool and family picnic area. Good fitness center but with the worst stationary bikes (Pelotons).

• If you fall in love with Hawaii and want to rent an apartment there, the place to be is Lilia Waikiki. Imagine living in a Ritz-Carlton with an enormous surfboard/bike storage room that is directly connected to Waikiki Market (mentioned above). There’s a level with a swimming pool, six gas BBQs (which you use but don’t have to clean), and a complete fitness center. There are ample work areas in the lobby, all the parking you can afford, and a totally keyless access system. Plus, in a few weeks, there will be a coffee shop IN THE LOBBY.

Shop

You are probably close to Ala Moana Center, and there’s something for everyone there. But if you want to venture out:

• Noho Home. You might not want to buy an 8 x 10 carpet while on vacation, but you never know. And Noho ships for free! Certainly, the cushion cases and table runners are worth a look. Not the usual tourist junk. This is good shit. We have an apartment in Honolulu with four Noho carpets and four cushions.

• Island Boy Shop. It’s hard to describe what you’ll find there–kind of a combination of art gallery, museum, and high-end fashion. But if you appreciate high style, you’ll like it.

• Fabric Mart. Remarkable fabric store if you’re into sewing, etc. There’s one in Waikiki, but go big or go home and go to the main store in Aiea.

Surf

• Ohana Surf Project for lessons. Use the promo code “friendofguy” for the kamaina discount.

• Koa Board Sports to rent surfboards, but you don’t need to rent if you take an Ohana lesson. Moku is ½ a block away with longer hours. The lady at Koa is tough, but OMG, can she longboard.

• Surf Garage. This is a surf shop for people who love surfing. It’s not walking distance to the water, so you really need to be in the know to go there.

• My favorite place to surf: Canoes. Always mellow. Tolerant of kooks. At any given time, ½ the people there are visiting from Santa Cruz.

• Second favorite place to surf: Publics, down the street from Canoes. 1-2 ft inside, 3-4 outside (divide by 2 for Hawaiian sizing). The disadvantage of Publics vs Canoes is that Publics has lots of coral heads that can injure you. Don’t be stupid by going out without an instructor, such as the Ohana Surf Project folks if you’re a beginner.

See

• Bishop Museum

• Children’s Discovery Center. If you have kids or grandkids under five or so, be sure to go to this museum.

• Honolulu Museum of Art

• Byodo Temple

• Polynesian Cultural Center

• Diamond Head Park. Once in a lifetime is enough, though, honestly. Make reservations in advance.

Aloha

After all this great advice, perhaps you could check out my latest book:

Everybody Has Something to Hide: Why and How to Use Signal to Preserve Your Privacy, Safety, and Well-Being

But wait, there’s more:

• Remarkable People podcast. You need to listen to something flying over.

• Substack newsletter if you like electronic newsletters.

Mahalo!

Guy

In our conversation, he explains why most of us are trapped in “business as usual,” using new tools like AI to do old things faster instead of unlocking entirely new possibilities. Tune in here.

His book Mindshift pushes leaders to rethink how they see change, shifting from reactive thinking to intentional creation. The real unlock isn’t technology—it’s perspective, curiosity, and the courage to ask better questions.

The key lesson: the future changes the moment you stop optimizing the past and start imagining what wasn’t possible before.

Catch Brian’s episode on Remarkable People here.

Mahalo!

Guy

The reality is that most environments change faster than plans can adapt. Markets shift, industries evolve, and priorities get rewritten without warning. Control is often temporary, but flexibility endures. Optionality—having multiple viable paths—creates a different kind of power.

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Redefine What Progress Looks Like

Progress is often framed as commitment to a single direction. Choose a path, stay focused, and push forward regardless of obstacles. That approach can work in stable environments, but it becomes risky when conditions change. Overcommitment can quietly turn into rigidity.

Optionality reframes progress as expanding your choices, not narrowing them too early. It allows you to move forward while still preserving the ability to pivot. The goal isn’t to avoid commitment entirely, but to delay irreversible decisions until you have better information.

Build Skills That Travel

The most reliable way to increase optionality is to invest in skills that transfer across roles, industries, and environments. Technical abilities matter, but durable skills like communication, judgment, and adaptability create more flexibility over time. These capabilities allow you to move between opportunities without starting over.

When your value is tied to a single role or niche, your options shrink. When your value is portable, your leverage increases. You are no longer dependent on one path working out as planned. That independence creates resilience in uncertain conditions.

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Avoid Closing Doors Too Early

Every decision closes some doors and opens others. The risk isn’t in choosing—it’s in choosing in a way that unnecessarily limits future movement. Early specialization, rigid identity, or overcommitment to a single outcome can reduce your ability to adapt later.

Optionality requires awareness of these tradeoffs. It means asking not just “Is this a good opportunity?” but “What does this decision prevent me from doing next?” Preserving flexibility doesn’t mean avoiding risk. It means avoiding unnecessary constraints.

Create Space to Pivot

Flexibility isn’t just a mindset; it’s a structure. Financial buffers, strong relationships, and a diverse set of experiences all create room to adjust when conditions change. Without that space, even the best intentions to pivot become difficult to execute.

Optionality is easier to maintain when you’re not operating at the edge of your limits. Margin creates choice. When you have room to think, you can respond instead of react.

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Let Time Work in Your Favor

Optionality compounds over time. Each skill you build, each relationship you deepen, and each experience you accumulate expands your range of possible moves. The longer you preserve flexibility, the more valuable it becomes.

In the long run, power doesn’t come from locking into a single path. It comes from having the ability to choose among many. Optimize for optionality, and you build a career that can adapt to whatever comes next.

Mahalo!

Guy

Tune in here!

Her new book, A Flower Traveled in My Blood, reveals how these women—armed with persistence, courage, and eventually DNA science—reclaimed the identities of children who had been raised under false names.

The story spans decades, court battles, scientific breakthroughs, and unimaginable personal loss. But it also offers a powerful reminder: ordinary people, acting together, can expose even the most carefully buried truths—and the lesson is that persistence can outlast injustice.

Mahalo!

Guy

But size alone doesn’t create value. A wide network gives you access, but access without trust rarely converts into anything meaningful. A deep network gives you trust, context, and continuity. Access opens doors once, while trust keeps them open over time.

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Redefine What It Means to Grow

Growth doesn’t have to mean adding more people. It can mean knowing the same people better and building a shared history over time. Understanding how they think, what they value, and when they need support turns a connection into a relationship. That depth creates a level of alignment that surface-level networking never achieves.

Depth takes intention. It requires following up, remembering details, and showing up when there’s no immediate benefit. It also requires patience, because trust doesn’t build on demand. That kind of investment compounds quietly, often without immediate visibility.

Invest Before You Need It

The strongest relationships are built long before they are tested. If the only time you reach out is when you need something, the relationship stays transactional and limited. People can feel the difference between genuine connection and opportunistic outreach. Over time, that difference shapes how willing they are to show up for you.

Checking in without an agenda, offering help without keeping score, and staying present over time creates a foundation that holds under pressure. In general, saying “yes” whenever people ask for help. When the moment comes that you do need something, the relationship can carry the weight.

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Show Up in Small Moments

Relationships rarely deepen through big gestures alone. They grow through small, repeated interactions that signal reliability and care. A thoughtful introduction, a quick note of encouragement, or remembering something that matters to someone builds trust incrementally. These moments create a pattern that people come to rely on.

These actions seem minor in isolation. Over time, they become the reason people choose to work with you again. Consistency in small moments signals something larger about how you operate.

Choose Depth Over Visibility

It’s easy to confuse visibility with connection. Being known by many people is not the same as being trusted by a few. Visibility can create opportunities, but it doesn’t guarantee support when it matters. In some cases, it creates the opposite—broad awareness without meaningful connection.

Depth creates advocates. It turns acquaintances into people who will speak for you when you’re not in the room. That kind of support is earned slowly and lost quickly, which makes it far more valuable.

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Let Trust Compound

Financial returns compound through time and consistency. Relationships work the same way, but the returns are often less visible and more powerful. The longer you invest in them with integrity and generosity, the more valuable they become. Over time, trust reduces friction in every interaction.

In the long run, people don’t remember how many people you knew. They remember how you showed up and how you made them feel over repeated interactions. Compound relationships, not just returns.

Mahalo!

Guy

In our latest episode of Remarkable People, he shares the inspiration behind The Viper, a novel rooted in real research inside America’s most secretive funeral home and the hidden world of witness protection.

But the most powerful idea isn’t about secrets—it’s about pentimento, the artistic term for seeing the original sketch beneath a painting. Brad believes our regrets are that sketch. You don’t erase them. You build on them.

The key lesson: you can’t create a masterpiece without first surviving the rough draft.

Tune in here!

Mahalo,

Guy

When culture depends on one person’s presence, the organization becomes fragile. Every hard decision bottlenecks. Every conflict waits for intervention. Every major initiative requires the same central voice to legitimize it.

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Replace Personality with Principles

Strong cultures are built on shared principles, not personal magnetism. When values are clear and consistently reinforced, people don’t need to guess what matters. They can make decisions without waiting for approval because the guardrails are visible.

If the only reason people act a certain way is because you are watching, you don’t have a culture. You have compliance. Principles create alignment that survives your absence.

Build Systems That Make Good Behavior Normal

Culture isn’t what you say at all-hands meetings. It’s what your systems reward and tolerate. Hiring criteria, promotion standards, performance reviews, and communication norms all signal what actually counts.

If collaboration is praised but individual heroics are rewarded, people will compete. If transparency is celebrated but bad news is punished, people will hide problems. Systems shape behavior more reliably than speeches ever will.

Distribute Ownership Deliberately

An organization that depends on one person for energy, clarity, and conflict resolution will never fully mature. Leadership must be distributed, not hoarded. That means giving others real authority, not just responsibility without power.

When people are trusted to decide, they grow stronger judgment. When they are required to escalate everything upward, they grow cautious and passive. Ownership builds resilience across the system instead of concentrating it at the top.

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Design for Your Absence

One of the most useful tests of culture is simple: what happens when you’re not in the room? Do meetings stall until you arrive, or do they move forward confidently? Are decisions postponed, or are they made within agreed-upon boundaries?

Designing for your absence forces clarity. It requires documentation, shared context, and defined decision rights. The goal isn’t to make yourself irrelevant, but to make the organization durable.

Think Beyond Your Tenure

Founders and leaders often pour themselves into building something meaningful. The real measure of success, however, is whether it continues to thrive without your daily presence. If momentum collapses when you step back, the culture was never truly embedded.

Charisma can launch a company, but culture and systems sustain it. Build an environment that doesn’t depend on you, and you build something that lasts.

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Mahalo,

Guy

P.S.

Email everybodyhassomethingtohide@gmail.com and I’ll send you an Amazon gift link to my new book, Everybody Has Something to Hide

• US Amazon accounts only (Amazon’s rule, not mine).

• If you’re outside the US, it’s $.99. If the link doesn’t work for you, you can forward it on to someone else in the US.

• Free Kindle apps work on phone, tablet, or computer.

In our conversation, he explains why innovation isn’t enough, why great companies often fail at the height of success, and how the most powerful disruptions make things simpler and cheaper for more people.

His new book, Epic Disruptions, shows that history’s biggest breakthroughs weren’t accidents—they followed patterns we can learn from.

The key lesson: disruption isn’t the goal—serving people better is.

Listen to the episode here!

Mahalo!

Guy

When deadlines compress, revenue dips, investors call, or competitors make aggressive moves, clarity disappears quickly. The “right thing” suddenly competes with survival instincts and short-term incentives.

The real test comes when those values become inconvenient, expensive, or slow. Chaos exposes whether your principles were commitments or just preferences.

Under stress, people rationalize decisions they would have rejected a week earlier, often without realizing it in the moment. That is why preparation matters more than intention.

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Decide Before You’re Tested

If you wait until pressure hits to determine what you believe, you are already at a disadvantage. Stress narrows thinking and shifts focus toward immediate relief instead of long-term consequences. In those moments, speed feels like clarity, but it often leads to decisions you would not endorse later.

Calm periods are when judgment is most reliable. This is the time to think through how to act when things go wrong is, ironically, when everything is going right. Decide in advance how transparent you will be, how you will handle mistakes, and how you will treat people when the stakes are high. These decisions create a baseline you can return to when conditions deteriorate.

Clarify Tradeoffs in Advance

Knowing your principles is not enough; you also need to understand the tradeoffs they require. Every meaningful value comes with a cost, especially under pressure. Choosing transparency may create short-term discomfort, while protecting trust may require sacrificing speed or revenue.

By naming these tradeoffs early, you remove ambiguity later. You are no longer debating abstract values in the middle of a crisis. Instead, you are executing decisions you already understand and accept. This clarity prevents hesitation and reduces the risk of making inconsistent choices under stress.

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Use Principles to Simplify Decisions

Principles are most useful when they function as filters. In a crisis, the volume and urgency of decisions can overwhelm even experienced teams. Without structure, every choice feels unique, and every discussion takes longer than it should.

Here are some examples:

• If an action risks customer harm, reject it immediately.

• Choose the option that preserves long-term trust.

• Data and frontline input outweigh management hierarchy.

Clear principles reduce that burden. They eliminate options that don’t align and focus attention on what matters. Instead of asking what works best right now, you ask what fits within the boundaries you’ve already set. That shift speeds up decision-making while maintaining consistency.

Model Behavior Before It Matters

Culture is shaped long before it is tested. If people see you cut corners when the stakes are low, they will expect the same behavior when the stakes are high. If they see consistency and accountability in ordinary moments, they will trust those behaviors to hold under pressure.

Leaders signal priorities through actions, not statements. The way you handle small decisions becomes the reference point for larger ones. When pressure arrives, people don’t wait for instructions—they follow patterns they have already observed.

Protect What Compounds

Not all outcomes are equal over time. Some decisions produce immediate results but create long-term damage. Others may feel costly in the moment, but strengthen the system over time.

Trust, reputation, and credibility compound slowly and are difficult to rebuild once lost. When pressure forces a choice, these are the assets worth protecting. Short-term gains are often visible, but long-term consequences are where the real cost lives.

Choose Before You’re Forced

You cannot control when pressure arrives, but you can control how prepared you are for it. Use calm periods to define your standards, understand your tradeoffs, and reinforce them through consistent behavior. Preparation reduces uncertainty when conditions change.

When chaos inevitably appears, you will move faster and with more confidence. Not because you are improvising well, but because you already know where you stand. The work done in quiet moments becomes protection in loud ones. Choose your principles before the shit hits the fan.

Mahalo!

Guy

In our latest episode, we talk about her new book Life Is a Lazy Susan of Sh*t Sandwiches, her evolution from interior designer to outspoken podcaster, and the deeply personal journey of loving someone through addiction and learning to admit when she was wrong.

What struck me most wasn’t her outrage—it was her discipline: she speaks fiercely into the mic, then walks away and lives a grounded, joyful life.

The key lesson? Say what you believe—but make sure you can still sleep at night.

TUNE IN HERE!

Mahalo,

Guy

P.S

Email everybodyhassomethingtohide@gmail.com and I’ll send you an Amazon gift link to my new book, Everybody Has Something to Hide

• US Amazon accounts only (Amazon’s rule, not mine).

• If you’re outside the US, it’s $.99. If the link doesn’t work for you, you can forward it on to someone else in the US.

• Free Kindle apps work on phone, tablet, or computer.

-Guy

Why? Because the personal finance system wasn’t built for calm, rational humans. It was built around our mistakes.

In the latest episode of Remarkable People, Tarun Ramadorai breaks down why smart, well-intentioned people struggle with money, how markets quietly profit from confusion, and what actually helps over the long run.

Drawing from his new book Fixed, Tarun offers a rare mix of clarity, humility, and practical wisdom.

If you’ve ever felt behind, overwhelmed, or unsure whether you’re “doing it right,” this conversation will change how you think about money—and yourself 💡🎧

Listen to the episode here!

Mahalo,

Guy

Meanwhile, someone with less raw ability but a strong work ethic and team-player reputation keeps getting invited into better rooms, bigger conversations, and more meaningful opportunities.

That’s not unfair. It’s how human systems work. Talent is the flash, but reputation is the cash.

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Understand How People Actually Decide

Many decisions about hiring, partnering, or trusting someone happen before the first meeting. By the time you walk into the room, people already have a story about you. That story shapes how your ideas are heard and how your mistakes are interpreted.

Reputation acts as a shortcut. When people don’t have time to evaluate your full body of work, they rely on signals: how others describe you, how you behave under pressure, and what it’s like to work with you when things go wrong. That story travels faster than your résumé ever will.

Notice What Really Gets Repeated

People rarely repeat how talented you are. They repeat the quality of your work. They talk about whether you followed through, whether you listened, whether you took credit or shared it. They remember how you handled disagreement, uncertainty, and failure. These details spread quietly and persistently, long after specific achievements are forgotten.

Reputation isn’t built in big moments. It’s built in small, consistent ones that compound over time.

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_______

Email everybodyhassomethingtohide@gmail.com and I’ll send you an Amazon gift link to my new book, Everybody Has Something to Hide

• US Amazon accounts only (Amazon’s rule, not mine).

• If you’re outside the US, it’s $.99. If the link doesn’t work for you, you can forward it on to someone else in the US.

• Free Kindle apps work on phone, tablet, or computer.

_____

Protect Trust Relentlessly

Trust is the core of reputation, and it’s far more fragile than competence. You can recover from a bad idea faster than you can recover from broken trust. Missed deadlines, careless words, and self-serving decisions linger longer than any single success.

This doesn’t mean you have to be perfect. It means you have to be reliable. Owning mistakes builds more trust than pretending they didn’t happen. Consistency matters more than brilliance.

People will forgive errors. They rarely forgive lapses in dependability.

Play the Long Game Deliberately

The irony is that reputation often benefits those who stop trying to manage it. When you focus on doing good work, treating people well, and acting with integrity when no one is watching, reputation takes care of itself.

Over time, it becomes a form of leverage you don’t have to spend. Doors open before you knock. Doubt is replaced with the benefit of the doubt. Your past behavior vouches for you when you’re not in the room.

Talent might get you noticed once. Reputation keeps you invited back.

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Invest Where Compounding Happens

Skills can be learned. Credentials can be earned. But reputation compounds quietly in the background, growing stronger or weaker with every interaction.

If you’re choosing where to invest your energy, choose the things that travel: generosity, clarity, follow-through, and respect. Those move faster than talent ever will.

In the long run, people don’t bet on who’s smartest. They bet on who they trust.

Mahalo,
Guy

In our conversation, the Stanford Medicine dean explains why predicting and preventing disease matters more than perfecting treatment, how AI can strengthen human care, and why wellbeing should be the true measure of success.

The key lesson: the best innovations don’t replace people—they help us care better for one another.

Mahalo!

Guy

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It’s tidy, linear, and reassuring. It suggests that progress is vertical and that success is simply a matter of climbing steadily upward. It’s also a poor description of how real careers actually unfold.

Real careers look more like jungle gyms. You climb up, move sideways, drop down, hang upside down for a while, and sometimes jump across to something new entirely. Progress isn’t measured only by elevation, but by agility, strength, and perspective. The value comes from how many dimensions you can move in, not just how high you can go.

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Email everybodyhassomethingtohide@gmail.com and I’ll send you an Amazon gift link to my new book, Everybody Has Something to Hide

• US Amazon accounts only (Amazon’s rule, not mine).

• If you’re outside the US, it’s $.99. If the link doesn’t work for you, you can forward it on to someone else in the US.

• Free Kindle apps work on phone, tablet, or computer.

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Use Ladders Early, Not Forever

Early in your career, ladders are useful. They provide structure when you’re learning basic skills and figuring out how organizations work. Titles act as training wheels, and upward movement creates momentum. In that phase, clear rungs reduce uncertainty and help you build confidence.

The problem begins when ladder thinking becomes permanent. If you cling to it too long, it quietly narrows your definition of success. You start optimizing for what’s “next” instead of what’s meaningful, and you confuse motion with progress.

A jungle gym mindset changes the question. Instead of asking, “What’s the next rung?” you ask, “Where else can I go? What new grip can I test? What skill can I build?”

Trade Straight Lines for Range

Ladders reward continuity. Jungle gyms reward flexibility.

On a ladder, every move is predictable. On a jungle gym, you experiment. A lateral shift into a different function might expand your thinking more than a promotion ever could. A temporary step back might give you the leverage to swing somewhere unexpected.

When people say they’re “stuck,” it’s often because they’re staring up at a rung that isn’t available. They assume the only acceptable movement is vertical. But on a jungle gym, there are always multiple paths. The better question isn’t, “What’s higher?” It’s, “What movement makes me stronger?”

Respect Timing Over Status

A jungle gym also reflects timing. What builds strength at twenty-five is different from what builds stability at forty-five. Early years are about exploration—testing grips, building muscle, learning how to move without fear. Later years are about control—knowing when to swing, when to hold steady, and when to let go.

Ladder logic ignores this shift. It treats every stage as a race upward, even when the wiser move is consolidation, reinvention, or depth. Careers don’t stall because people slow down. They stall because people refuse to move differently when the structure around them changes.

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Optimize for Strength, Not Height

The most durable careers are built by people who optimize for strength instead of height. They focus on building capability—judgment, communication, resilience, pattern recognition—because those skills travel with them no matter where they climb.

Titles expire. Strength compounds.

If you invest in learning how to adapt, collaborate, and recover from missteps, you’re not dependent on a single company or industry to validate you. You can grab a new bar when the old one disappears.

Design Your Movement Intentionally

You don’t need a master plan, but you do need awareness. Pay attention to where you’re growing, where you’re coasting, and where you might need to shift direction. The goal isn’t constant ascent. The goal is to keep developing the strength and flexibility to move with confidence.

Ladders promise certainty. Jungle gyms offer longevity. Choose the jungle gym.

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Mahalo,
Guy

Have you ever noticed that you only hear about the companies that (allegedly) moved fast and broke things? You don’t hear about the companies that moved fast and died. This is because nobody talks about them, not because this doesn’t happen.

The phrase made sense in a very specific moment: small teams, experimental products, forgiving users, and problems that could be fixed with a rollback and an apology. The blast radius was limited, the stakes were low, and the people affected were often early adopters who expected things to break. That moment rewarded speed because the cost of mistakes was trivial compared to the upside of learning quickly…that moment is largely over.

Today, what you break tends to matter. Systems are bigger, platforms are interconnected, and the consequences of failure travel farther and faster than they used to. What once felt like harmless iteration can now trigger lasting damage.

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Acknowledge What the Myth Gets Right

Speed does matter. Momentum matters. Indecision kills more startups than bad decisions, especially in competitive markets where timing can determine who survives and who fades into irrelevance. Waiting too long can turn a great idea into a historical footnote.

If you wait for perfect information, someone else will ship first. They’ll learn faster, attract users sooner, and set expectations before you ever enter the conversation. In many cases, moving quickly is the only way to stay relevant at all.

So yes—moving fast is often a competitive advantage. It creates learning loops, builds energy inside teams, and prevents fear from masquerading as prudence. Speed can be a sign of clarity and conviction when it’s paired with intention.

But that’s where the truth ends. Speed alone is not a strategy, and velocity without direction doesn’t guarantee progress. When speed becomes the goal instead of the tool, it starts to work against you.

Examine What the Myth Gets Wrong

The myth ignores what you’re breaking. It treats all damage as acceptable collateral and assumes that anything broken can simply be rebuilt later. That assumption is convenient, but it’s rarely true.

Breaking code is one thing. Code can be refactored, rewritten, or replaced entirely with enough time and effort. The cost is real, but it’s usually finite.

Breaking trust is another. Trust erodes quietly and rebuilds slowly, if it comes back at all. Customers don’t always complain when trust is broken—they just leave.

Breaking customers, partners, employees, or regulators is usually fatal. These relationships are not versioned assets that can be rolled back with a patch. Once they’re damaged, every future interaction becomes harder.

Many founders confuse urgency with recklessness. They ship before they understand their users, mistaking activity for insight. They scale before they earn loyalty, assuming growth will smooth over rough edges that never actually disappear. They optimize for short-term metrics while quietly eroding credibility.

You don’t notice the damage right away. Trust breaks silently, often behind a dashboard that still looks healthy. By the time it’s visible, it’s already gone—and fixing it costs far more than slowing down ever would have.

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Observe What Actually Works

The best teams don’t “move fast and break things.” They move with intent, and they’re deliberate about where speed helps and where it harms. They understand that velocity is only valuable when it’s pointed in the right direction.

They:

• Move fast and fix things

• Move fast and learn

• Move fast and protect what compounds

They treat speed as a way to reduce uncertainty, not as an excuse to ignore consequences. They know what’s fragile and what’s not, and they design their systems and decisions around that distinction.

But protect:

• Your reputation

• Your user’s time and data

• Your team’s morale

These are assets that compound quietly over time. When they’re strong, everything else becomes easier. Once they’re broken, progress slows to a crawl, no matter how fast you try to move.

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Adopt a Better Rule

If you need a replacement mantra, try this:

“Move fast where it’s cheap. Move carefully where it’s expensive.”

That framing forces judgment. It asks you to think about consequences before acting, instead of just celebrating speed for its own sake. It acknowledges that not all mistakes cost the same—and that some costs are permanent.

Speed without judgment isn’t courage. It’s laziness disguised as confidence, a refusal to do the harder work of thinking clearly about tradeoffs. Real courage is knowing when to slow down, even when everyone around you is celebrating momentum.

Progress doesn’t come from breaking things indiscriminately. It comes from knowing what not to break, and from building systems that can move quickly without sacrificing what matters most.

Mahalo,
Guy

In our conversation, she breaks down why grit without forgiveness burns people out, why values quietly sabotage careers when left unexamined, and why so many smart people end up living lives that don’t fit.

Tune in here!

Drawing from her work and her book Becoming You, Suzy offers a grounded framework for aligning who you are with what you do, before momentum makes the choice for you. The key lesson: clarity isn’t found by chasing success—it’s built by understanding yourself first.

Mahalo,

Guy

The book is only available as a Kindle ebook for US accounts. There are free Kindle reader apps for your phone, tablet, and computer. To receive yours:

1. Email everybodyhassomethingtohide@gmail.com, so we can get your email address.

2. You will receive a gift link in an email from Amazon to download the book.

3. Click on link, read, and be safe!

(Believe me, I am cognizant of the contradiction/irony/hypocrisy of offering you a book about privacy that requires Amazon using your email address…It’s complicated and not ideal, but for many reasons, the best solution.)

This offer is my way of thanking you for being part of this community and helping spread the importance of privacy, security, and well-being. I’ll do this for the first 100 people.

Mahalo!

Guy