The Beatles. What were their best and worst decisions?

Best Decision: Hiring Brian Epstein (1962) This transformed everything. Before Epstein, they were talented but scruffy lads playing Hamburg dives and Liverpool’s Cavern Club. He made them professional: suits, choreographed bows, strategic bookings but without killing their spirit. More crucially, he secured the EMI/Parlophone deal after being rejected everywhere else. Without Epstein’s vision and relentless advocacy, they might have remained Liverpool’s best local band.

Close second: Rejecting the establishment by stopping touring (1966). Revolutionary at the time, it freed them to create Sgt. Pepper, The White Album, and Abbey Road, work that simply couldn’t have happened while grinding through “She Loves You” to screaming crowds.

Worst Decision: Apple Corps (1968) Their utopian business venture haemorrhaged money spectacularly. The “Western communism” approach of giving money to any artist who asked, launching random ventures from boutiques to electronics was chaos. It attracted freeloaders, created tax nightmares, and intensified the business tensions that helped destroy the band.

Close second: Not properly resolving the management dispute after Epstein’s death (1967). The Klein vs. Eastman battle became a proxy war that made the split inevitable and poisoned relationships for decades.

To Study The Beatles is To Study Life.

The Tools of Excellence

Number 39 of 70

The 2x2 Matrix

The 2x2 matrix, two axes (one vertical and one horizontal) creating four quadrants, is the most straightforward and most powerful tool for decision-making and prioritisation. Draw a cross on paper, label the axes, and suddenly, complex decisions become visual. The classic application is Eisenhower’s urgent/essential matrix: the horizontal axis runs from “not urgent” to “urgent,” and the vertical axis from “not important” to “important.” Four quadrants emerge: urgent and important (do now), important but not urgent (schedule), urgent but not necessary (delegate), neither urgent nor essential (eliminate). Plot your tasks, and your priorities become obvious.

The 2x2 works for any two-dimensional decision. Evaluating job offers? The axes could be “compensation” vs “fulfilment.” Choosing where to live? “Cost” vs “quality of life.” Deciding what projects to pursue? “Impact” vs “effort.” The matrix makes tradeoffs visible.

This is the T-bar decision sheet’s sophisticated cousin: the T-bar handles single yes/no decisions and the 2x2 matrix handles multiple options evaluated against two criteria simultaneously. Both externalise thinking, making hidden patterns mentally obvious. Of course, keep it simple. A scrap of paper and thirty seconds of drawing are sufficient. The power isn’t in the tool’s complexity; it’s in transforming abstract decisions into concrete visual relationships.

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The Tools of Excellence

Number 21 of 70: The AI Buddy

An AI assistant-ChatGPT, Claude, or similar-is unlike any earlier tool we have discussed because it thinks with you. Need to refine an email? Draft a difficult conversation? Understand a complex topic? Generate ideas? Your AI buddy can, at once, without judgment, at any hour, with the simplest of briefings, support your own thinking and drafts.

This is not about replacing human connection; it’s about augmenting your capabilities. Think of it as having a tireless research assistant, writing coach, brainstorming partner, and patient explainer available instantly. Stuck on a problem at 11 PM? Ask. Need to understand a complicated geopolitical situation? Ask. Want feedback on your covering letter? Ask.

The quality of output depends entirely on the quality of your input. Vague briefings get vague answers. Specific, detailed prompts get genuinely helpful responses. Learn to prompt well: provide context, specify constraints, iterate on answers, and AI becomes very effective indeed.

My current preference is for Claude; I enjoy its speed, its ‘thinking,’ and its memory and anticipation.

What makes it a Tool of Excellence is accessibility and cost. World-class help is available for free or at a low price, requiring only an internet connection. There is no scheduling, no small talk, no feeling of imposition: just questions and answers, problems and solutions, ideas, and refinement. A subscription will bring unlimited assistance. That’s cognitive augmentation made accessible.

The Tools of Excellence book is here.