Talking About Marketing

Steve whispers the word “recession” in a dark alley at the top of this episode. David laughs. Then they get serious. Consumer confidence in the US is currently at its lowest since records began in 1952, lower than during the Cuban Missile Crisis. That context shapes everything Steve and David unpack here, drawing on Mike Michalowicz’s book The Recession Response, written in 2020 and, as it turns out, very muc...

In this episode, Steve Davis and David Olney take Lawson’s poem The Duty of Australians seriously, not as nostalgia, but as a working framework for building businesses that last.

Alongside that, they wrestle with a 1985 book that predicted social media addiction decades before the first smartphone, examine a CEO’s cringe-worthy burger video, and flag a quiet data-harvesting threat hiding in the app store.

Get ...

Nicholas Christakis lectures behind blast doors in Kyiv, and his students are beaming. CS Lewis reminds us from 1939 that life has never actually been normal. Viktor Frankl offers three anchors that helped people survive the worst conditions imaginable. The message for small business owners carrying a little extra anxiety right now: you are not alone, and this is survivable.

Georgie Dent’s book Breaking Badly hits c...

A former FBI agent reveals the three silent signals that tell people you are safe to trust, before you open your mouth. David tests them in real conversations this week, with results that surprised even him.

A book about respect has a genuinely powerful idea at its centre. It also has a guest list that raises some uncomfortable questions, and Steve took them straight to the author on LinkedIn.

AI-generated spam has crossed from ann...

Mikhail Lermontov wrote a preface designed to stop skimmers in their tracks. Steve and David unpack why that trick works, and why most of us forget to use it.

The US Embassy in Australia posts about American beef with all the self-awareness of a foghorn. A masterclass in knowing who your audience actually is.

An AI agent calls its own creator at dawn. Another publishes a hit piece on a volunteer coder. The era of agentic AI is here...

Paul Taylor shows us why hardiness beats resilience every time, through four characteristics that separate the business owners who adapt and overcome from those who merely survive.

Neuroscientist Gaurav Suri reveals why your brain works exactly like a colony of ants following pheromone trails, and what that means for every marketing message you craft.

Steve unmasks the latest wave of AI hype merchants who want you to believe their ...

Steve’s nostalgic trip down memory lane reveals something unexpected: wholesome content makes us more productive, while rage baiting turns workplaces toxic. Who knew golf electives and drama classes held such wisdom?

Mathematician David Bessis claims we need system three thinking, a super-slow mode where you refuse to give up on wrong intuitions until you understand why they misfired. David Olney pushes back, arguing this is just what proper slow thinking looks like when you give it the time it needs.

From Christopher Hitchens’ reflections on truth-telling to the paramedic’s competency cycle, discover why mastering basics creates mental space for what truly matters in both crisis situations and everyday business.

Tim Ferriss explains why he’s become less disciplined over the past decade, and paradoxically, more effective. The secret lies in replacing willpower with systems that do the heavy lifting automatically.

Steve opens with a morbid but revealing question about eulogies, leading to Hunter S. Thompson’s brutal assessment of Richard Nixon and what our own legacies might reveal about how we’ve chosen to live.

In Person, Leigh Anderson’s “The Paramedic Mindset” reveals why technical competence becomes the foundation for human connection, particularly when stakes are highest. His framework of physical, psychological, and social wellbeing offers a blueprint for anyone working under pressure.

Viktor Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning” offers profound guidance for business owners feeling overwhelmed by today’s relentless news cycle, reminding us that survival often depends on having something meaningful to work toward rather than comfortable circumstances.

Steve sets the scene with a restaurant analogy that cuts to the heart of our AI dilemma: magnificent handcrafted hamburgers versus mass-produced alternatives both serve purposes, but only when we choose consciously rather than defaulting to whatever feels easiest.

Stan McChrystal reveals why character equals conviction multiplied by discipline – and why this military wisdom transforms how we approach marketing authenticity in a world obsessed with quick wins.

Belle Baker’s thoughtful response to our previous episode on conversational power sparks a deeper exploration into the magic words that either constrain or liberate our thinking. When we default to asking “what should we do?” we’re unknowingly shutting down possibilities, but shifting to “what could we do?” opens creative floodgates.

Rutger Bregman challenges us to create ripple effects from small personal changes that benefit entire communities.

In Person, we discover why songwriters and business folk alike benefit from fresh eyes that ask the right questions, revealing how collaboration creates outcomes greater than the sum of their parts.