Sunday Ross Beef 🥩 #1 01.08.21

Welcome guinea pigs!

Friends,

Happy Sunday! This newsletter is invite only as I test out new content with a small group and work out what you love, and what’s not so hot! I wanted to include you in my first 20 to hear what you think - so make a comment below, or just hit reply to this email with a thumbs up or down. Or feel free to unsubscribe if this doesn’t suit you! I hope you’ll stick around though 😀.

Following in the tracks of Paths Less Trodden

Welcome to my new weekly newsletter which I’ll be publishing on Sundays, just in time to give you a pick me up before the new week starts. You may be familiar with my Paths Less Trodden interview series where I chew the fat with fascinating folk like Jack Butcher, Rory Sutherland, Tshepo Mohlala and George Calhoun among others. You can subscribe to that here if you haven’t already:

And now my Sunday Ross Beef 🥩

Here, I’ll share just three ideas, thoughts or provocations which have intrigued me over the course of the last week. Enjoy!

---

1) Starbucks vs. Dunkin’ Donuts

I'm reading 'Predictably Irrational' by Dan Ariely. Most of us are familiar with herding behaviour - it happens when we assume that something is good (or bad) on the basis of other people's previous behaviour, and our own actions follow suit.

What about the subtler self-herding? Ariely discusses this behaviour by illustrating what drew us to Starbucks the first time, and what's kept us there, despite the shockingly high prices. What's wrong with the almost identical coffee at Dunkin' Donuts or the free coffee at work? A new preference, irrational as it may be, quickly becomes a habit; and Starbucks does everything in its power to ensure their experience feels so different that we lose Dunkin' Donuts as our price anchor.

One benefit of COVID has been an enforced destruction of many daily, illogical (and expensive) habits.

2) Da Vinci’s Family Tree

Research suggests there are 14 living people that can claim to be descendants of the Italian genius.

Leonardo da Vinci’s ‘living relatives’ identified

3) Tokyo Olympics: constellation of drones form globe at opening ceremony

1.8k drones flew in unison over Tokyo to create a beautiful 3D light display during the Olympic opening ceremony.

---

If you’d like to share Sunday Ross Beef, you can do that here:

Have a great week!

Daniel