No #157 | February 23, 2025

by Matthew Boyd

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

What a hockey game on Thursday night😲🙌.

Canada needed that.

I was able to watch it with a few friends and my kids and we'll remember that Connor McDavid goal for a lifetime. Looking forward to the rematch at the Olympics next year🥇.

In this week's Lead It Cool newsletter:

• 👀Out of Site, Out of Mind
• 🏥How to Avoid the Doctor
• 🖊️Comparison Kills Creativity
• 🤣Goose
• 😎Cool Links

👀Out of Site, Out of Mind

A book that I deeply admire (and frequently cite in this very newsletter) is Robert Greene's The 48 Laws of Power.

The book distills each law of power, backs it up with historical evidence, and even explores instances where the reverse of the law also holds true. It’s part Machiavellian playbook, part cautionary tale, and a goldmine of insights into human behavior.

One day, when I have a little more free time, I’d love to write a book in a similar vein. Except mine would focus on the unwritten laws of human psychology, backed by references from popular culture. Think The 48 Laws of Power meets Entertainment Tonight.

Here’s one of the chapters I’d include:

The Out of Sight, Out of Mind Paradox

It’s a phrase we hear all the time, and it generally holds true.

Humans are a visually dominant species—we rely so heavily on sight that if something isn’t physically in front of us, it might as well not exist.

This is both a survival mechanism and a coping strategy. We filter out what’s irrelevant (or what makes us uncomfortable), allowing us to focus on the present. It’s why digital detoxes can feel so refreshing: your eyes get a break from doomscrolling, and your brain gets to breathe.

A great pop culture example of this comes from the 2000 film The Beach, starring Leonardo DiCaprio. For those who haven’t seen it (or have blocked it from memory - also a great soundtrack btw), it follows a group of backpackers who discover an idyllic secret island paradise. There’s a pivotal scene where one of the group members is attacked by a shark. Initially, the community rallies to help him, but when it becomes clear that he’s beyond saving, they do something brutal: they move him out of sight.

They drag him to a secluded part of the beach, away from the main camp, so they don’t have to see or hear his suffering. Out of sight, out of mind—problem solved.

Or at least, ignored.

Of course, not everyone subscribes to this mindset. DiCaprio’s character eventually goes to visit the injured man, signaling his moral struggle and separating him from the rest of the group, who have chosen blissful ignorance over uncomfortable reality.

The Flip Side: Out of Sight, Into Mind

But here’s where it gets interesting. While we often forget what we can’t see, there’s also a psychological phenomenon where absence actually makes something more present in our minds.

Ever left a meeting early and immediately felt paranoid that everyone started talking about you the moment you walked out? That’s the “out of sight, into mind” effect in action.

A perfect pop culture example of this happened in last week’s White Lotus season three premiere. There’s a scene where three longtime friends are sitting together, chatting and gossiping.

Then, one of them gets up to go to bed early. The second she’s gone, the two remaining friends lean in and start whispering intensely. She glances back and just knows: she’s the new topic of discussion.

This is the paradox in motion.

When you’re there, you’re just part of the scenery. But the second you’re gone, your absence becomes the most interesting thing in the room.

The Takeaway

The Out of Sight, Out of Mind Paradox reminds us that what we don’t see can either fade into oblivion or grow into an obsession, it all depends on context.

Understanding this can make you a better strategist, a sharper observer of human nature, and possibly just a little more paranoid at dinner parties.

🏥How to Avoid the Doctor

The New York Times published an insightful article this week featuring top advice from ER doctors on how to avoid a trip to the emergency room, in other words, things you should never do.

Here they are:

🥑Don't slice an avocado in a hurry

🦘Don't trust a trampoline (have even less trust in a trampoline park)

🐶Don't pet strange dogs

🤒Don't ignore sudden symptoms

👷‍♂️Don't ride without a helmet

🖊️Comparison Kills Creativity

So, so true...

🤣Goose

This comic felt apropos with Canada's hockey win this week🤣.

😎Cool Links

🤔Is free will freeing? Here's why the freedom of choice is a trap in the modern era. But, then again, we rarely stop to look at the downsides of our reliance on and faith in choice. Humans are limited in our ability to make good choices, as psychologists often tell us, because we fail to really know our own minds. We are also made anxious by having too many choices since we can’t predict their outcomes and know we are likely to wonder if we picked wrong afterward. Who can’t relate to that feeling of slight panic and sometimes paralysis at the very 21st-century scenario of being confronted with too many options and too little guidance about how to discriminate among them, whether in real life or online?

📞Gen Z battling with phone anxiety are taking telephobia courses to learn the last art of a call. “I think that plays into a large part of the anxiety when it comes to audio only calls. They can’t see you. They think that you’re laughing at them, or they think that you are judging them, so they’re not getting that response back from you in order to assure themselves of how they’re doing.”

🌊Be a thermostat not a thermometer. (My variation to this quote is don't be the boat on someone else's ocean. Be the ocean.)

👑We Live Like Royalty and Don't Know It. The great European cathedrals were built over generations by thousands of people and sustained entire communities. Similarly, the electric grid, the public-water supply, the food-distribution network, and the public-health system took the collective labor of thousands of people over many decades. They are the cathedrals of our secular era. They are high among the great accomplishments of our civilization. But they don’t inspire bestselling novels or blockbuster films. No poets celebrate the sewage treatment plants that prevent them from dying of dysentery. Like almost everyone else, they rarely note the existence of the systems around them, let alone understand how they work.

🤖🤖The Perfect Ai Prompt​

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