No #195 | November 16, 2025

by Matthew Boyd

Good morning, welcome to the weekly Lead It Cool newsletter.

We have a local radio station that has already switched to 100% Christmas music and I'm... just... not... ready yet. This song feels more appropriate right now.🤪☔

In this week's Lead It Cool newsletter:

• ✅Keep It Simple
• 🤔The Past - The Future
• 📱Instagram Generation
• 😆Yoga
• 😎Cool Links

✅Keep It Simple

I went to see the new The Running Man film last night with my son and brother. This version is a remake of the 1987 classic that starred Arnold Schwarzenegger.

On the drive home, I asked my son: “Which version did you like better?”

Without hesitation, he said, “The original.”

“Why?” I asked.

“The new one was too complicated.”

And he was right.

The latest Running Man had its moments and was certainly entertaining, but without giving away any spoilers, the plot twisted itself into unnecessary complexity, especially in the third act. The original, by contrast, was beautifully simple: a good guy fighting bad guys and winning. That’s it.

It reminded me of those “save the failing restaurant” shows.

The first thing the expert chef does isn’t to invent a new menu, it’s to cut the existing one in half. Too many dishes confuse the kitchen and overwhelm the customer. Simplicity isn’t just elegant, it’s effective.

Somewhere along the way, we started believing that complexity equals quality. The more intricate, the better. The more layers, subplots, and clever twists, the more impressive.

But the paradox is this: complexity often weakens the message. Simplicity strengthens it.

​Only in a rerun.

🤔The Past - The Future

I'm pretty sure I've posted this before in my newsletter but it's always worth resharing (original source).

📱Instagram Generation

Saw this quote recently.

"The Instagram generation experiences the present moment as an anticipated memory."

Deep thoughts.

😆Yoga

I go to yoga once a week and this comic is🎯.

😎Cool Links

🤖Why Elon Musk Got the Most Ridiculous Pay Package in the History of Humanity. The new deal is massively incentive based. Under it, he receives no salary. Instead, he gets allocations of Tesla stock when the company hits certain targets. This type of deal resembles a bonus structure in sports contracts, and if you follow sports, you understand that some incentive targets are attainable, and some incentive targets are not.

🎓Universities are embracing AI: will students get smarter or stop thinking? But many education specialists are deeply concerned about the explosion of AI on campuses: they fear that AI tools are impeding learning because they’re so new that teachers and students are struggling to use them well. Faculty members also worry that students are using AI to short-cut their way through assignments and tests, and some research hints that offloading mental work in this way can stifle independent, critical thought.

😳Billboard's Top Country Song is Currently AI Slop. The song, titled “Walk My Walk,” by a fictional group called Breaking Rust, tells an incredibly generic story about a man who has “been beat down” and got “mud on my jeans,” yet perseveres through it all. The song was accompanied by an AI slop video on Instagram, showing a man in a cowboy hat heroically walking into the sunset.

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Thank you!

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