How these notes are put together

Each note has to do one thing: argue a single claim about business skill and show its working. This page states the rules that produce them, so you can judge what you are reading.

One claim per note

A note is built around a single claim that could be wrong. If a piece cannot be reduced to one sentence that someone might reasonably dispute, it is a summary of received opinion and it does not get published here. The claim appears in the opening paragraph, not at the end.

Worked examples, not borrowed ones

Every note carries an example worked out in the abstract: a situation described in enough detail to follow the arithmetic or the reasoning. The examples are constructed to illustrate the mechanism. They do not describe any real business, any real person, or any real transaction, and no figures here are reported from anyone's accounts.

This is a deliberate limit. An invented case study that names a company would read as evidence while being nothing of the kind, so the notes stay with situations that are transparently illustrative.

Subjects, and why there are seven

The seven subjects are pricing, negotiation, demand, focus, cash, leverage and setbacks. They are not a taxonomy of business; they are the areas where a change in how someone thinks tends to produce a change in what they do within a month. Subjects get added when a note will not fit the existing set, which is rarer than it sounds.

Revised in place

Notes are revised rather than reposted. When the argument in a note changes, the note changes and its revision date moves; there is no separate corrections stream and no attempt to preserve the earlier wording. Every listing row on this site carries the revision date for that reason, so you always know how old the argument you are reading is.

What this site does not do

It does not rate, score or rank anything. It does not carry advertising for the subjects it writes about. It does not publish interviews, profiles or success stories, for the reasons argued in note 08. It offers no advice on any individual situation, because the writing here is general by construction and any specific case has facts that would change the answer.

The writing is signed with the site name and nothing else. There is no claim of credentials behind it; the arguments are meant to be judged on whether they hold up when you apply them.

Set of notes last worked on 2026-08-11.