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Dan Newman

Entrepreneur, Professional Learner, & Proud Failure. Writes about sales, marketing, and entrepreneurship from the eyes of a learning and development nerd. Lead teams, manage people, scale a business, and learn better through the biweekly irreverent newsletter, the TL;DR.

A man with feedback feeling unsafe next to a woman who is overly confident
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The TL;DR, Publishing Your Private DMs And Measuring The Fallout

A bi-weekly roundup of quietly suppressed opinions October 4 - October 17 What If Your Slack Got Wikileaked? Picture this: imagine that whatever you and your team use for private communication (Slack, Teams, long rambling email threads, texts, etc.) became public knowledge. And when I mean public, I don't only mean to other internal team members, but also clients, prospects, job candidates, etc. Yes, even Charlie. He's...horrified. And hurt. That mental image that's giving you the willies is...

Learn to Scale turns 6 years old

Hey Reader, For six years, I’ve been a founder. The journey has been a winding road of trial, error, and a whole lot of learning. I’ve sold to HR departments, consulted for startups, and chased opportunities across different industries, always feeling like I was just one step away from "figuring it out." I was a generalist trying to solve everyone's problems. And it was exhausting. But looking back, a clear pattern emerged. Every time I did my best work, every time a client had a true...

an entrepreneur who has accepted his failures and is brainstorming how to move forward with refreshed offerings

A bi-weekly roundup of insights from six years of failure September 20 - October 3 Stitching A New Birthday Suit Next week, Learn to Scale turns six years old. I've been a professional failure for almost six years. I don't know about you, but birthdays make me reflective. It's a special event that connects you to previous versions of yourself: the person who used to believe one thing is the same person that you are today, but you've changed what you believe. And every year, the Dan from...

Man in purple sweatshirt between two pathways, one leads to a small factory, one leads to a tall skyscraper.

A bi-weekly roundup of how 1.9 billion AI queries are mostly about dating advice September 6 - September 13 Hey ChatGPT- how does my hair look? New research that came out this week from OpenAI and Anthropic shows some mind-bending facts about how the world is utilizing this new hotness they're calling "AI." I published a deep dive on this new research in a new blog post, Are You Using AI for $10 Tasks or $10,000 Decisions? The fact from this research that's still living rent-free in my head:...

two people sitting on chairs, looking seriously into each other's eyes with the text above, "It's never just one problem."

A bi-weekly roundup of ways culture eats strategy for breakfast August 23 - September 5 Breathing a Big Sigh Of Strategy You know the scene that's in countless superhero movies where the good guys look each other in the eyes as they finalize their grand plan to beat the big baddie? This turning point also tends to be the catharsis of their interpersonal conflict, with an incremental "Put our differences to the side and save the world" head nod. So dramatic! The stakes in those stories (and...

A bi-weekly roundup of better ways to say something August 9 - August 22 Life Hack: A Spoonful of Sugar When I was younger, I thought the pathway to the American Dream was paved by merit. As long as I was smart, truthful, and effective, I'd be on the fast track to fame and fortune. I cannot count the ways I've been wrong about that belief. Whether it was starting a feud in my local newspaper, or being unfairly brutal to my supervisor in their performance review, or making a 15-slide...

A bi-weekly roundup of habits that generate ROI July 26 - August 8 Catalysts In Three Flavors This week I made a thirsty LinkedIn post featuring CRO Roman Noodles because I was in a full-blown spiral about my habits. I started questioning everything: are the routines I cling to actually Catalysts sparking growth, or are they just well-disguised Crutches? After a little reflection, I decided that the simple "good habit vs. bad habit" diagnosis felt flimsy. We all know a workout can be a...

A bi-weekly roundup of opinions from your secret cabal of AI advisors July 12 - July 25 Advice, But 5x Better Last week I was grappling with a range of tough decisions and because I'm a total nerd for AI, I was talking it out with Gemini. I journaled out the context, jotted down my personal thoughts, and uploaded a few files into that chatbox. After the AI went brr, it basically told me what I wanted to hear. This is a common AI problem: they're designed to be syncophants. However, with this...

a team of people who are trying to understand each other with green arrows pointing to a shared blue circle

A bi-weekly roundup of putting your strong foot into your mouth June 28 - July 11 Misplaced Strength Whenever you do any kind of personality test with a team - CliftonStrengths, DiSC, Enneagram, etc.- you suddenly "know" your colleagues in a new way. That knowledge is powerful and you can't put the genie back in the bottle. Armed with that data, it's hard to not adapt and change your behavior, whether you mean to or not. While personality inventories can foster understanding and better...

four individuals in a Renaissance style symbolizing Sales, Account Management, Operations, and Leadership

A bi-weekly roundup of ways to make your recurring leadership meeting more epic June 14 - June 27 Ride or Die: The Four Horsemen of Agencies The strength of an agency lies in four key areas: Sales, Account Management, Operations, and Leadership. Each one is a powerful force, a "horseman" that can either lead you to victory or trample you in the dust. Since it's the Summer of Strengths at Learn to Scale, we've hopped on the horseback for each core function and explored how each role's...