The Contrarian Digest [Week 16]
The Contrarian Digest is my weekly pick of LinkedIn posts I couldn’t ignore. Smart ideas, bold perspectives, or conversations worth having.
No algorithms, no hype… Just real ideas worth your time.
Let’s dive in [16th Edition] 👇
1️⃣ Reese Witherspoon & The $900M Book Club – Justine Juillard
⚡𝐈𝐧 𝐛𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐟: What if the smartest way to build a media empire is to let your audience pick the hits before you even make them? How Reese Whitherspoon reverse-engineered Hollywood.
🗞️𝐅𝐮𝐥𝐥 𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐭: https://lnkd.in/ead6zD29
2️⃣ Let Competition Write Your Strategy – Alex M H Smith
⚡𝐈𝐧 𝐛𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐟: Why reinvent strategy when your competitors have already done the heavy lifting? Decode their signals and build on their thinking.
🗞️𝐅𝐮𝐥𝐥 𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐭: https://lnkd.in/e8nbQkGf
3️⃣ The Myth of “Fair” AI – Glen McCracken
⚡𝐈𝐧 𝐛𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐟: Many keep demanding “fair AI.” But what if fairness is the wrong ask? Fairness isn’t a technical spec. It’s the fiction of objectivity itself.
🗞️𝐅𝐮𝐥𝐥 𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐭: https://lnkd.in/esuRd2Sj
4️⃣ Your Job Won’t Love You Back. Start Acting Accordingly – Ashley Couto
⚡𝐈𝐧 𝐛𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐟: Companies will replace you in a heartbeat, yet we keep burning ourselves out. Here’s your script for pushing back without burning bridges.
🗞️𝐅𝐮𝐥𝐥 𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐭: https://lnkd.in/eitWxFJK
5️⃣ How Quiet Leaders Win – Mike Leber
⚡𝐈𝐧 𝐛𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐟: While everyone chases the spotlight, true influence operates in the spaces between words. These 9 powers change how we see leadership.
🗞️𝐅𝐮𝐥𝐥 𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐭: https://lnkd.in/eUrESyig
6️⃣ When AI Kills Curiosity – Shashank Sharma
⚡𝐈𝐧 𝐛𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐟: GPT isn’t just a “tool,”it’s a slow-acting poison for critical thinking. The real danger isn’t wrong answers, but the death of questioning itself.
🗞️𝐅𝐮𝐥𝐥 𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐭: https://lnkd.in/ekR-auAm
7️⃣ The Inflammation Solution: 12 Foods That Work Like Medicine – Andrew Panella
⚡𝐈𝐧 𝐛𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐟: Inflammation is a silent killer. But your kitchen holds the antidote. These 12 foods can protect you – backed by real science, not hype.
🗞️𝐅𝐮𝐥𝐥 𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐭: https://lnkd.in/eeYVJjXJ
8️⃣ The Unwritten Rules of Selling – Gal Aga
⚡𝐈𝐧 𝐛𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐟: Most sales advice falls flat. It’s crafted for role plays, not real-world complexity. Ditch the “playbooks” and start supporting how buyers actually make decisions.
🗞️𝐅𝐮𝐥𝐥 𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐭: https://lnkd.in/eWCbzMNW
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Which of these topics resonates with you the most?
Share your thoughts in the comments!
To your success,
Gaetan Portaels
Original publication date — June 2, 2025 (HERE)
READ THE FULL POSTS BELOW (and please, don’t forget to follow the authors)
1️⃣ Reese Witherspoon & The $900M Book Club – Justine Juillard
This woman sold her book club for $900M.
In the mid-2010s, Reese Witherspoon’s acting career hit a wall.
After winning an Oscar in 2006, she spent nearly a decade in rom-com limbo.
Studios weren’t giving her great roles—and the ones she did take flopped.
So she started reading.
Not just a personal habit.
But as market research.
In 2017, she launched Reese’s Book Club with one rule: every pick had to be a story where a woman drives the narrative.
She shared the books with her fans and used her monthly selections to test which stories resonated most with real audiences.
Then she built the next layer of the model.
She founded Hello Sunshine (her media company) and started making deals directly with authors.
The pitch was simple: I’ll give you access to my audience—you’ll sell a ton of books. In return, I just want the future rights to adapt your story.
In some cases, she paid upfront to option the IP.
In others, she secured a right of first refusal—meaning if anyone else wanted to buy the screen rights, she’d get the first shot.
If the book performed well with her audience, she’d move fast: develop it for TV or film, pitch it to a streamer, and either produce it—or star in it herself.
This is how projects like Big Little Lies, Little Fires Everywhere, The Morning Show, and Daisy Jones and the Six got made.
All four were based on books.
All four were developed by Hello Sunshine.
And all four had massive built-in audiences before they hit screens.
Traditionally, studios take huge bets on expensive scripts and hope audiences will care.
Witherspoon flipped that model.
She let the audience choose first—then built the content around their response.
It worked.
In 2021, she sold Hello Sunshine to Candle Media in a deal that valued the company at $900M.
She took home an estimated $120M personally and retained an ownership stake.
At the same time, she became one of the highest-paid women in TV, earning $1M+ per episode for The Morning Show.
She only pursued stories that already had traction.
She only developed content once there was data.
She didn’t raise huge outside capital.
And she partnered with streamers who were hungry for proven IP and willing to fund production.
That iconic line from Legally Blonde:
“You got into Harvard Law?”
“What, like it’s hard?”
Reese Witherspoon gave it a sequel:
“You built a billion-dollar media company without writing or publishing a single book?”
“No big deal. I just bought the rights.”
3️⃣ The Myth of “Fair” AI – Glen McCracken
AI shouldn’t be fair…
We keep demanding fair AI. But we really need to stop pretending we mean the same thing.
What we actually want is AI that’s fair to us.
To our story.
To our worldview.
To our incentives.
To our version of the truth.
That’s not fairness.
That’s self-interest dressed up with slightly better branding.
Fairness isn’t fixed.
It bends – to power, politics, and whoever’s holding the pen.
Ask three people to define “fairness” and you’ll get four answers.
All of them confident.
None of them compatible:
– Should a hiring model boost underrepresented groups?
– Should a loan model ignore postcodes?
– Should a healthcare algorithm treat everyone the same – even when the outcomes won’t be?
– Should an education app give every student the same content – or adapt based on who’s already falling behind?
– Should AI punish repeat offenders more harshly – or give them another chance?
Every “fair” choice creates an unfair shadow. It’s equity on the surface, with trade-offs underneath.
Here’s what AI can do:
Rank. Optimise. Predict. Prioritise.
What it can’t do?
Moral philosophy.
Because fairness isn’t a feature. It’s a judgment call. And judgment comes from values.
Human values.
Which are messy, biased, political, contradictory… and completely unavoidable.
The real risk isn’t unfair AI.
It’s pretend-fair AI.
Systems that sound neutral. But quietly reflect the views of whoever trained them.
And yes, I can already hear it: “Oh Glen – again with the problem, what’s the solution?”
Fine. Here’s the solution:
Don’t ask AI to be fair.
Ask it to be:
– Transparent
– Auditable
– Accountable
Because an AI trying to please everyone? Will serve no one. And answer to nothing.
You want fair AI? Start by agreeing on what fair even means. I’ll wait.
Until then:
Let the humans bicker.
Let the AI show its receipts.
*To summarise my position – I’m not saying fairness doesn’t matter. I’m saying it’s not something AI can decide for us. It’s something we humans have to wrestle with, define, and own. And then make those trade-offs visible, accountable, and open to challenge.
4️⃣ Your Job Won’t Love You Back. Start Acting Accordingly – Ashley Couto
You’re the only person who truly has your back at work.
Do a better job of looking out for yourself.
A new study says bosses judge workers who unplug.
Excuse me, but… what? Seriously?
This is why we’re in a burnout epidemic.
And look… we all put in extra work. That’s just how it is to be a working person.
But companies lay people off in a Thanos snap.
So we need to stop stabbing ourselves in the back & working to the point of burnout.
Use these phrases to politely push against overwork:
1/ “I’ll need to move something to take this on.”
↳ Shows you value your current work and aren’t just a dumping ground.
2/ “What should I deprioritize to make space for this?”
↳ Makes trade-offs visible so they see the real cost of yes.
3/ “I’m at capacity with my current projects.”
↳ Simple, clear, and doesn’t require you to justify your workload.
4/ “How much flexibility is there on the timeline?”
↳ Negotiate deadlines instead of killing yourself to meet impossible ones.
5/ “I need more context before committing.”
↳ Gather info before saying yes to avoid surprise scope creep.
6/ “Let’s find someone who can take this on.”
↳ Not everything is your job and that’s perfectly okay.
7/ “I’m not available, but I’ll help find someone who is.”
↳ Master the art of the helpful but firm “soft no” in your career.
8/ “I’ll get back to you by tomorrow afternoon.”
↳ You don’t owe instant responses to every single request.
It’s okay to be at the top of your priority list.
You certainly won’t be at the top of anyone else’s.
How do you set boundaries with work?
5️⃣ How Quiet Leaders Win – Mike Leber
The loudest voices seek attention.
But the quiet ones earn true respect:
Quiet people focus on the work, not the spotlight.
They rarely interrupt.
But they’re far from passive.
Their leadership shines through:
✅ Q – Quality
✅ U – Understanding
✅ I – Introspection & Learning
✅ E – Empathy & Genuine Connections
✅ T – Thoughtfulness in Words & Actions
Quiet people influence carefully without noise.
Here are 9 of their hidden superpowers every leader can adopt:
(the heart of true leadership)
1. They turn silence into strategy ⚡
↳ Leaving intentional pauses in conversations
↳ They watch what truths emerge when no one fills the gap
2. They can read emotional weather patterns 🌡️
↳ Spotting team friction 3 meetings before it explodes
↳ They sense mood shifts before words are spoken
3. They interrupt with surgical precision ⚔️
↳ Speaking sparingly, but precisely when it counts
↳ They stop runaway meetings with a single question
4. They run mental simulations 🧠
↳ While you plan one move, they’ve tested five
↳ They map out scenarios before speaking
5. They build invisible bridges 🌉
↳ Connecting conversations weeks apart
↳ Solving today’s problem with last month’s forgotten insight
6. They can stack tiny observations 🔬
↳ Noticing when someone’s energy drops mid-sentence
↳ Then they turn tiny changes into major insights
7. They influence through strategic absence 🌌
↳ Making their presence valuable by being selective
↳ And turning their silence into a power move
8. They collect reactions before speaking 📊
↳ While others rush to reply, they absorb the facts
↳ Finding hidden consensus in scattered opinions
9. They time their impact ⏰
↳ They don’t just wait to speak – they wait to matter
↳ Knowing exactly when ideas will land or fail
The loudest rarely hold the deepest wisdom.
But the quiet often carry the sharpest vision.
Which quiet superpower will you practice today?
6️⃣ When AI Kills Curiosity – Shashank Sharma
GPT Terrorism will kill you.
Look. This is serious. You don’t need bombs. You don’t need guns. You just need people to stop thinking. That’s it. And GPT can help them do exactly that.
Everything starts looking like GPT because GPT is very good at sounding like everything. It’s trained on a whole universe of human text. So it’s got the flavor of knowledge. But flavor isn’t nutrition.
When I read something, I like to know where it comes from. Who wrote it? Why? What were they trying to say? GPT doesn’t have that. It just gives you the words. Smooth, clean, correct-looking words.
But that’s the problem. It looks right. So people believe it. And if enough people believe it, they stop checking. That’s the danger.
That’s what I mean by terrorism. Not in the usual sense. But in the sense of a system slowly taking over how we decide what’s true. People stop arguing. They stop digging. They stop saying, “Hey, wait a minute.” That’s deadly.
You’ve got to ask yourself: when you read a GPT answer, are you thinking more or less than you were before? If you’re thinking less, then you’re in trouble.
See, learning isn’t about getting answers. It’s about asking better questions. And GPT doesn’t ask you to ask questions. It just gives you answers. Nicely phrased. Carefully balanced. But without the guts.
You could say, well, it’s just a tool. Sure. But a hammer doesn’t look like a finished house. GPT looks like thinking. That’s what’s so sneaky about it. You can mistake it for your own mind.
You’ve got to fight that. You’ve got to keep the tension alive. The doubt. The curiosity. Otherwise, it’s like breathing factory air and thinking it’s fresh. You get used to it. But it’s not good for you.
GPT terrorism kills by making everyone feel like they know, even when they don’t. And if you’re not careful, you’ll go along with it. Because it’s easy. Because it sounds good.
But sounding good isn’t the same as being right. And if you forget that, you’re dead.
7️⃣ The Inflammation Solution: 12 Foods That Work Like Medicine – Andrew Panella
Inflammation is a silent killer.
It skyrockets your risk of heart disease, diabetes and cancer (without you even realizing).
Here are the top 12 science-backed foods to reduce inflammation:
1. Red meat.
Rich in carnosine and CLA, red meat lowers TNF-α and IL-6.
Unprocessed red meat doesn’t cause inflammation—refined carbs do.
Opt for grass-fed beef, seared rare in butter or ghee.
2. Extra Virgin Olive Oil.
Oleocanthal in EVOO blocks the same enzymes as ibuprofen.
Myth: Fats are bad for you and will make you fat.
Truth: Healthy fats are vital for your hormonal health.
3. Blueberries.
Anthocyanins in blueberries inhibit NF-κB, a key inflammation pathway.
Eat ½ cup with Greek yogurt or post-workout shakes.
4. Turmeric.
The curcumin in it lowers CRP and suppresses the NLRP3 inflammasome.
Consume it with piperine to boost absorption by up to 2000%
Turmeric is best in curries.
5. Ginger.
Gingerol blocks COX and LOX enzymes that trigger inflammation.
Add fresh ginger to teas, stir-fries, or smoothies.
6. Coconut Oil.
Lauric acid and MCTs in coconut oil suppress IL-6 and oxidative stress.
It´s great for cooking as doesn´t break down into toxic inflammatory compounds at high temperatures.
Even improves cholesterol & metabolism.
7. Garlic
Allicin in garlic downregulates cytokines and boosts immune response.
Raw garlic is more anti-inflammatory than when it´s cooked.
Crush it, let it sit 10 mins, then mix into olive oil or yogurt dips.
8. Green Tea.
The EGCG in it blocks inflammatory proteins like STAT3 and NF-κB.
Brew 1–2 cups daily – don’t use boiling water or you’ll kill the catechins.
Green tea can even help you lose weight.
9. Salmon.
EPA/DHA in salmon convert into resolvins that turn off inflammation.
Buy wild-caught. Farmed salmon has less omega-3s and can contain toxins.
Pan-sear or bake at low temp with lemon and herbs.
10. Eggs.
Egg yolks contain choline and lutein – nutrients that calm inflammation.
Eat pasture-raised eggs soft-boiled or cooked in coconut oil or ghee.
11. Dark Chocolate (85% cocoa+)
It has flavanols which reduce CRP and improve blood flow.
But most chocolate is junk – only 85%+ cocoa has the health benefits.
Ideal as a healthy desert for a sustainable diet.
12. Greek Yogurt.
Most yogurts are full of artificial additives and sugar.
Choose full-fat, unsweetened greek yogurt with live active cultures and add ceylon cinnamon to it.
This is the best for gut & metabolic health.
Inflammation is terrible for your health but the solution is as simple as these foods.
8️⃣ The Unwritten Rules of Selling – Gal Aga
I’ve been in sales for 17 years and managed 100s of AEs. This profession is so full of bad advice and it took me ages to find my mentors. Here are 9 things I wish someone had told me years ago…
1. Buyers Close Deals, Not You
It’s easy to obsess over sales meetings. But the real magic happens in buyers’ internal meetings—those you’re not invited to. Align your actions with the critical steps THEY need to build consensus. Don’t sell. Enable them to buy.
2. Your Sales Process is Meant to Be Broken
On that note, your role is not just to execute your process but to offer ‘Project Management Services’ to your buyers’ process. Your process is there to offer a good foundation to build on, but it only covers 5-17% of your buyers’ process.
3. Calendar Overload = Illusion of Control
Weekly champion syncs feel great, but the truth is—you’re probably not moving the needle much. If you fail to equip buyers between calls with the right tools or content, you’ll discover your “champion” isn’t championing. Help them build momentum internally—24/7.
4. Budget is Almost Never the Deal-Breaker
Stop asking about budget on the first call. It is rarely a reason to qualify out. No buyer only spends on pre-allocated line items. “No budget” simply means “No Justification” to create one for the value you’ve been able to convey.
5. Accessing Stakeholders is NOT Enough
Multithreading is not about having many people on your calls/emails. That’s a vanity metric. It’s about building separate relationships to support their specific needs/requirements/concerns. That’s what truly moves the needle.
6. Executives Hate Deep Discovery on Calls
Structured deep discovery doesn’t work well in executive calls. You must lead with stories, teach them something new, and let a conversation develop. They have zero patience. If you try to have long conversations first, they’ll tune off.
7. You’ll Fail 99% of Outbound Intro Calls if You Treat Them Like Inbound
You lead with discovery on Inbound but lead with insights on Outbound—It’s OK to use slides if they serve the discovery. It’s even OK to demo before you have all the pain points figured out. As long as it all serves the discovery.
8. Drop the ‘Perfect Discovery’ Fantasy
A perfect disco only works in a role-play. Try it in real life and you’ll end up with no next steps. Worry less about your framework, and more about having a meaningful conversation around ‘why do anything’, ‘why now’, and ‘why you’. The rest only helps you and can come later.
9. Speed is Your Biggest Easy ‘Hack’ to Drive Urgency
Nothing cuts down deal cycles like dictating a fast rhythm of communication. Received an email? Answer from your phone right away. Talking next steps? Offer a call tomorrow. Discussed timeline/MAP? Recap that on every follow-up.
——
Don’t make it harder than it has to be.
Make mistakes. Learn from them.
But always learn from other people’s mistakes first.