The Diary of a CEO
Bartlett shows stories rule everything and self-mastery beats fake hustle every time. Read it before you keep leading like an idiot.
leadershipLAW 9 ALWAYS PRIORITISE YOUR FIRST FOUNDATION
AQ's take: Health wrecked my 20s hustle. Prioritizing foundation now stops future crashes.
May 15, 2026This is exactly the position you are in concerning your mind and body. You only get one mind, and you only get one body. And it’s got to last a lifetime. Now, it’s very easy to let them ride for many years. But if you don’t take care of that mind and that body, they’ll be a wreck 40 years later, just like the car would be. It’s what you do right now, today, that determines how your mind and body will operate 10, 20, and 30 years from now. You must take care of it.
AQ's take: Treated body like rental car. Now fixing it before total wreck.
May 15, 2026Everything is contingent on the table. Everything is contingent on my health. My health is my first foundation. Therefore my health, logically, must be my first priority, every day, for ever.
AQ's take: Health trumps deals. Skipped gym, paid in burnout years later.
May 15, 2026There is no greater form of gratitude than taking care of yourself.
AQ's take: Self-care feels selfish until hospital bills hit. Gratitude starts here.
May 15, 2026‘Those who think they have no time for bodily exercise will sooner or later have to find time for illness.’ Edward Stanley
AQ's take: Skipped workouts, got sick. Stanley nailed my regret.
May 15, 2026LAW 10 USELESS ABSURDITY WILL DEFINE YOU MORE THAN USEFUL PRACTICALITIES
AQ's take: Chasing practicals bored me. Absurd pursuits sparked my real fire.
May 15, 2026What we believe about ourselves creates our thoughts and feelings, our thoughts and feelings determine our actions, and our actions create our evidence. To create new evidence you must change your actions.
AQ's take: Old lazy beliefs kept feeding my procrastination loop. Finally explains my ADHD prison break.
May 14, 2026The most convincing sign that someone will achieve new results in the future is new behaviour in the present. LAW 8 NEVER FIGHT A BAD HABIT
AQ's take: Quit battling bad habits, just swap 'em out. My 20-year blog graveyard approves.
May 14, 2026Questions, unlike statements, elicit an active response – they make people think.
AQ's take: My statements closed minds. Questions cracked mine open.
May 12, 2026The great thing about a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ question is it doesn’t give you any wiggle room to deceive yourself. It forces you to commit one way or the other.
AQ's take: No bullshit escape hatch. Forces my lazy brain to pick a side.
May 12, 2026If you want to create positive behaviour, don’t make statements, ask binary yes or no questions. People are more likely to answer ‘yes’ if it will bring them closer to who they want to be, and once they answer ‘yes’, that yes is more likely to come true.
AQ's take: Yes/no hacks my ADHD into building habits I actually want.
May 12, 2026LAW 7 NEVER COMPROMISE YOUR SELF-STORY
AQ's take: Sacrificed my self-story for jobs. Regret city. Never again.
May 12, 2026Stop telling yourself you’re not qualified, good enough or worthy. Growth happens when you start doing the things you’re not qualified to do. LAW 5 YOU MUST LEAN IN TO BIZARRE BEHAVIOUR
AQ's take: Called myself unqualified for decades. Finally did the scary shit. Results followed.
May 7, 2026Leaning out, as I define it, isn’t about being ‘wrong’ – it’s about being so arrogantly sure that you’re right that you refuse to listen, learn and pay attention to new information.
AQ's take: I've been that arrogant fool ignoring feedback. Ego's expensive lesson.
May 7, 2026Research has shown that cognitive dissonance is most painful for us when we encounter facts or evidence that destabilise or conflict with how we see ourselves, that undermine our identity and confidence in ourselves, or that make us feel in some way threatened.
AQ's take: Hits my identity crises hard. Hated admitting I'm wrong about myself.
May 7, 2026whenever we’ve invested time, money or energy into something and it ends up being a complete waste of time, this creates dissonance, which we try to reduce by finding ways of justifying our bad decision.
AQ's take: Wasted years justifying sunk costs on dead projects. Brutal truth.
May 7, 2026Rory Sutherland, vice chairman of the Ogilvy advertising group, on this very topic, and he told me: ‘All too often, what matters to people is not whether an idea is true or effective, but whether it fits with the preconceptions of a dominant convention or incumbent. New things put ego, status, jobs and identities at stake.’
AQ's take: New ideas threaten my status quo too. Comfort kills innovation.
May 7, 2026Taking no risks will be your biggest risk.
AQ's take: No risks? That's how I missed chances. Safe is deadly.
May 7, 2026If you live avoiding risk, you’re risking missing out on life. LAW 6 ASK, DON’T TELL - THE QUESTION/BEHAVIOUR EFFECT
AQ's take: Asking changed my stubborn teams. Telling just built walls.
May 7, 2026Don’t try and break or argue with someone’s existing evidence; instead focus on implanting completely new evidence, and make sure you’ve highlighted the incredibly positive impact this new evidence will have on them.
AQ's take: Wasted years arguing old beliefs. Planting shiny new ones? Game-changer for stubborn teams like mine.
May 5, 2026Asking someone to explain the detail and logic underpinning their strongly held beliefs is a profoundly powerful way to reduce their conviction.
AQ's take: Asking for logic exposed my dumb defenses. Exploded my fake confidence instantly.
May 5, 2026‘Do the thing you fear, and keep on doing it. That is the quickest and surest way ever yet discovered to conquer fear.’ Dale Carnegie
AQ's take: Feared starting blogs forever. Doing it anyway killed the monster. ADHD hack unlocked.
May 5, 2026TO MASTER IT, YOU MUST CREATE AN OBLIGATION TO TEACH IT
AQ's take: Teaching it obligates real learning. Explains my failed tutorials forcing actual knowledge.
May 2, 2026The late spiritual leader Yogi Bhajan once said, ‘If you want to learn something, read about it. If you want to understand something, write about it. If you want to master something, teach it.’
AQ's take: Yogi Bhajan exposed my fake understanding. Teaching my gaps hurts but works.
May 2, 2026The key factor here is that I made learning, then writing/recording and sharing it online, a daily obligation, not just an interest.
AQ's take: Daily sharing killed my interest-only excuses. Now I ship or embarrass myself.
May 2, 2026‘Skin in the game’ works because across several global studies it’s been demonstrated that human behaviour is more strongly driven by the motivation to avoid losses than to pursue gains, which is what scientists call ‘loss aversion’. Give yourself something to lose.
AQ's take: Skin in game via loss aversion? Public flaking terrifies my ADHD brain.
May 2, 2026Being able to simplify an idea and successfully share it with others is both the path to understanding it and the proof that you do. One of the ways we mask our lack of understanding of any idea is by using more words, bigger words and less necessary words.
AQ's take: Simplifying proves mastery. My word salads hid total ignorance.
May 2, 2026The Feynman technique is a powerful mental model for self-development. It forces you to strip away unnecessary complexity, distil a concept to its purest essence, and develop a rich, in-depth understanding of whatever discipline you seek to master.
AQ's take: Feynman stripped my ADHD fluff. Distilling clarified what I bullshitted.
May 2, 2026‘The person who learns the most in any classroom is the teacher.’ James Clear
AQ's take: Teaching clarified my foggy ideas. Clear was right about classrooms.
May 2, 2026You don’t become a master because you’re able to retain knowledge. You become a master when you’re able to release it.
AQ's take: Releasing knowledge proved mastery. Hoarding showed I never learned shit.
May 2, 2026YOU MUST NEVER DISAGREE
AQ's take: Never disagree first? Crushed my ego but saved arguments from imploding.
May 2, 2026Healthy conflict strengthens relationships because those involved are working against a problem; unhealthy conflict weakens a relationship because those involved are working against each other.
AQ's take: Healthy conflict builds. My personal attacks burned every bridge.
May 2, 2026if you want to keep someone’s brain lit up and receptive to your point of view, you must not start your response with a statement of disagreement.
AQ's take: No opening disagreement? My hot takes always killed real conversations.
May 2, 2026The strength of any carefully reasoned, logical argument isn’t likely to be recognised when you open with disagreement - regardless of how much evidence you have or how objectively correct you are.
AQ's take: Shared beliefs unlock minds. Finally explains my failed debates.
May 2, 2026In the midst of a negotiation, debate or heated argument, try and remember that the key to changing someone’s mind is finding a shared belief or motive that will keep their brain open to your point of view.
AQ's take: Bridges over barriers. My walls destroyed connections I needed.
May 2, 2026Our words should be bridges to comprehension, not barriers to connection. Disagree less, understand more.
AQ's take: Beliefs aren't chosen? Explains inheriting dumb ones from trusted morons.
May 2, 2026YOU DO NOT GET TO CHOOSE WHAT YOU BELIEVE
AQ's take: Kahneman nailed blind confidence. My preposterous beliefs from loved idiots.
May 2, 2026‘For some of our most important beliefs we have no evidence at all, except that people we love and trust hold these beliefs. Considering how little we know, the confidence we have in our beliefs is preposterous - and it is also essential.’ 2002 Nobel Prize laureate Daniel Kahneman
May 2, 2026As Leonardo da Vinci asserted, ‘One can have no smaller or greater mastery than mastery of oneself; you will never have a greater or lesser dominion than that over yourself; the height of your success is gauged by your self-mastery, the depth of your failure by your self-abandonment. Those who cannot establish dominion over themselves will have no dominion over others.’
AQ's take: Da Vinci called out my procrastination hell. No self-mastery, I'm toast.
Apr 23, 2026Stories are the single most powerful weapon any leader can arm themselves with – they are the currency of humanity. Those who tell captivating, inspiring, emotional stories rule the world.
AQ's take: Stories explain my blog addiction. They hooked you here, didn't they?
Apr 23, 2026Your philosophy is the set of beliefs, values or principles that guide your behaviour – they are the fundamental beliefs that underpin your actions.
AQ's take: Philosophy? My anti-ADHD armor. Without it, I'm chaos incarnate.
Apr 23, 2026THE FIVE BUCKETS 1. What you know (your knowledge) 2. What you can do (your skills) 3. Who you know (your network) 4. What you have (your resources) 5. What the world thinks of you (your reputation)
AQ's take: Buckets hit hard: skills survived my startup graves.
Apr 23, 2026There are only two buckets that any such professional earthquake can never empty - it can take away your network, it can take your resources, it can even impact your reputation, but it can never remove your knowledge and it can never unlearn your skills.
AQ's take: Fired, broke, skills endured. Earthquake-proofed my comeback.
Apr 23, 2026