The Mentor | #58 | Details
Each month, I share 3 things I’ve read on skills, careers, and personal development.
“Details will matter, details will differentiate, and details will earn (or keep) trust.” -From AI Value Creators
Consider the Statue of Liberty. She stands tall in New York Harbor. But if you look closer—zoom in on her hair—you’ll notice intricate braiding and perfectly styled curls. It’s perfect hair atop a perfect statue.
Here’s the remarkable part: the Statue of Liberty was completed in 1886, a full decade before the first airplane took flight. Her sculptor, Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, had no reason to believe anyone would ever see the top of her head. Yet, he poured meticulous effort into every detail. Why? Because sculpture was his craft, and his reputation depended on those details.
The decisions you make over the next few years—and how you make them—may never be seen in isolation or explicitly, but the details of them will matter. In a world increasingly driven by speed and shortcuts, it’s the unseen braids atop the statue—the quiet, disciplined attention to detail—that creates real differentiation and impact.
Details don’t slow you down.
They set you apart.
1
Taste is something we can and should try to cultivate. And it’s rarely absent of detail. Taste is developed over time—not as a natural gift, but as a disciplined attention to nuance, beauty, and precision.
2
Incremental, tiny bits, little ideas mixing, joining, blending, mutating, and compounding together. Big outcomes often come from an accumulation of small, thoughtful details.
3
Leaders should care about details—even the precise shade of yellow on a Sunday.
Craftsmanship