Friday's Five ✋ #451
The real thing, without apology
Happy Friday! ☀️
Many thanks to those who became a Founding Member last week. The feedback has been generous and it’s exciting to see the first people use something I built from scratch.
Back in the countryside near Salzburg for another in-person module of my coaching development course. These few days have become something I genuinely look forward to: time to learn, time to reflect, time to be a participant rather than the facilitator. The course notebook is filling up.
What I’m reading 📖
Michel Houellebecq's Serotonin was my first encounter with France's most controversial living novelist and it won't be the last. Florent-Claude quietly disappears from his own life, checks into a Paris hotel, and watches everything around him slowly decay. The writing is flat, detached, and completely unsparing. Uncomfortable to listen to at times, and yet that discomfort is precisely the point. In an era of sanitized language (politics, media, marketing), there is something genuinely refreshing about a writer who says the real thing without apology. More about the book.
What I’m listening to 🎧
A few weeks ago, Kathleen Edwards made an appearance here. This week, Widowspeak’s new album arrived and for the first few minutes, could have sworn it was her. Same dreamy Americana vein, same unhurried quality. A happy mistake and a new discovery.
What I’m watching 📺
A younger version of me would have dismissed instrumental music as incomplete. A song without a singer and lyrics wasn’t a real song. Then, somewhere along the way, Khruangbin arrived. Then Hermanos Gutierrez. Maybe it’s age, maybe a finer palate. Either way, the Gutierrez brothers have been my most-played act for the past two or three years: background music during workshops, morning coffee with the family, deep desk work, friends over for dinner. It’s only this week that the thought occurred to check YouTube for live recordings. Should have done that much earlier.
What I’m thinking about 🧠
Adam Grant put into words this week something I've been sitting with for a while. In a time when everyone seems to have an opinion on everything, and silence is increasingly read as complicity, staying quiet can feel like doing it wrong. His argument: choosing where to direct your finite attention and energy isn't a moral failure. It's a necessity. Read it here.
What else?! 💯
Thom was one of the most thoughtful and kind colleagues during my time at SoundCloud. First marketing manager, went on to build the first real marketing function, a trusted peer with good taste in music. Today he coaches marketing leaders, builds his own products, and writes about how marketing is changing in the age of AI. Worth following if you work in this space.
Thanks for reading, have a great weekend!
David
450+ Fridays. 61 countries. 400k+ views.
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