Strands of Genius: Thinking For Yourself, Cross Tabs, Ask Faris
Plus: we're going to Cannes, what about you?
Strands of Genius is a newsletter from the co-founders of Genius Steals, Faris & Rosie Yakob. They are award-winning strategists, facilitators, creative directors, writers and public speakers who get excited about working with smart people on interesting challenges. You should probably go ahead and hit reply so we can collaborate on something together :)
:: THE UPDATE ::
It’s hard to believe it’s already May. Where does time go?! We have finally met up in France — Reunited and it feels so good! We are staying in Toulouse with our dear friends Paul, Anais and Apolline, eating all the French baguettes, smothered with sour cherry jelly and thick slices of brie.
We’ll soon travel to Italy and then onto the UK, and then we’ll be back in France…
🥐 Cannes You Believe It?
We’re trading croissants for credentials — heading to Cannes for the very first time! Faris is making it official with a talk on The Terrace Stage on Thursday, June 19 from 10:45–11:15am, and we’ll both be around all week (June 15–20) soaking in the sunshine, creativity, and the occasional existential crisis brought on by brand activations.
We’ll also be hosting a lil something ourselves with our friends at LWS on Monday, June 16 from 3-4:30p.
If you’re going to be in France, hit reply and let’s try to meet up—especially if you know where the best coffee is hiding or just want to swap theories about how AI is taking over everyone’s outreach strategy.
If you’ve been before, please share any tips/tricks on how to navigate and/or how one gets an invite to the Wall Street Journal House ;)
:: A HOT TAKE ON GETTING LUCKY ::
In marketing (ahem — and often in life), we love to credit “luck” for big wins: a campaign goes viral, a brand breaks through, or a chance encounter leads to the perfect partnership. But here’s the secret: luck rarely happens by accident. It’s the result of awareness, action, and a willingness to embrace the unexpected.
The luckiest brands aren’t sitting around waiting for lightning to strike. They create opportunities, while staying open to unexpected pivots, recognizing moments of serendipity when they appear. Luck finds those who are prepared to experiment and to take risks. It’s about removing your blinders and being open to all possibilities.
Take Oreo’s "Dunk in the Dark" tweet during the 2013 Super Bowl blackout. That wasn’t just luck—it was a brand that had the right team in place, ready to react in real time, turning an unpredictable moment into marketing gold. Or look at TikTok’s role in reviving Ocean Spray—when a viral video of a man skateboarding and drinking cranberry juice took off, the brand didn’t just watch it happen; they leaned into the momentum, embraced the trend, and turned it into a cultural moment.
This month, we’re diving into how to cultivate your own luck—because the best opportunities don’t just fall into your lap. They come when you’re ready to seize them. How can we position ourselves, our brands, and our ideas in ways that increase the chances of “lucky” breaks? How do we recognize and capitalize on serendipity when it appears? And how do we build teams, strategies, and mindsets that make luck feel less like magic—and more like something we can create?
Because at the end of the day, luck isn’t just about being in the right place at the right time. It’s about being ready when you get there.
:: THE LINKS ::
HOW TO THINK FOR YOURSELF
Ian Leslie takes some time to dive into what spaces humans ‘can lean into’ in the age of AI, and in doing so recommended this essay on how to think for yourself, from Paul Graham which is a total banger. He writes, “One of the most effective techniques is one practiced unintentionally by most nerds: simply to be less aware what conventional beliefs are. It's hard to be a conformist if you don't know what you're supposed to conform to. Though again, it may be that such people already are independent-minded. A conventional-minded person would probably feel anxious not knowing what other people thought, and make more effort to find out.”
Of course one of the challenges is that people are ‘mistaken’ on just how conventional they are: Conventionally-minded people don’t like to (and therefore don’t tend to) think of themselves as such. While Graham suggests that some of this is an inherent ‘nature’ vs nurture, we can still exercise the individual muscles required to be an independent thinker: “fastidiousness about truth, resistance to being told what to think, and curiosity.” He says that ultimately curiosity should be our general compass here. We need to avoid situations that suppress curiosity if we want to cultivate it instead. [The Ruffian/Paul Graham]
A POST-TRUTH ECONOMY FOR THE 1%
Our bestie Farrah had Faris on her excellent podcast Cross Tabs to discuss some of his recent thinking on the shape of the emerging consumer economy. They discussed “the illusion of averages, an increasingly bifurcated economy that creates a truly distorted distribution curve, the effects of geopolitics and tariffs on business and consumer health, and the way cultural isolation and economic precarity are driving us into more than one kind of polarization.” and the podcast has extensive notes on all the articles we mention. (Cross Tabs)
ASK FARIS
The very first episode of Askfaris from Medicat launched! You can send your burning questions to Askfaris@mediacat.uk or watch the latest episode to see the kinds of questions coming in so far. “In this episode of Ask Faris, MediaCat UK’s media and marketing agony uncle answers questions about a post attention-baiting world, the dichotomy between trust and targeting, and AI customer engagement strategies.”(MediaCat)
With mega thanks to the lovely, smart and insanely talented Jacob Sanders and the Audio Content Lab for kindly making the awesome jingles!
:: STEAL THIS REPORT ::
Speaking of Cannes…they just released the 2025 State of Creativity report, featuring a survey of 1000 marketers and creatives. Their top-line results suggest that:
Creative confidence is waning. A belief in bold, original and effective creativity as a driver of business success is essential for brands today.
But this year’s study shows risk aversion when it comes to marketing is holding businesses back. Only 13% of this year’s respondents view their companies as risk-friendly. And brands are treading even more carefully: 29% admit to being highly risk-averse.
This week, we’re writing to you from Toulouse, France. We’re especially thankful for:
daily croissants, all of the cheese, kriek & Leffe blonde, The Thirsty Monk, Monoprix, kindles in the park, dinners on patios, the Turkish Airlines airport lounge, which has all the delicious food, and YOU!
If we can ever be of help to you, even outside of a formal engagement, please don’t hesitate to let us know. You can hit reply to this email if you’ve got anything to say, and we’ll endeavor to get back to you promptly!
rockON,
faris & rosie | your friends over at geniussteals.co
(still want more? @farisyakob.com is on Bluesky sometimes while @rosieyakob prefers instagram stories)
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It's called Genius Steals because we believe ideas are new combinations and that nothing can come from nothing. But copying is lazy. We believe the best way to innovate is to look at the best of that which came before and combine those elements into new solutions.
Co-Founders Faris & Rosie are award-winning strategists and creative directors, writers, consultants and public speakers who have been living on the road/runway since March 2013, working with companies all over the world. We have a distributed team ourselves, an accounting team is based in Tennessee where our company is registered, our admin extraordinaire is based in Playa del Carmen, and our collaborators are all over the world. Being nomadic allows us to go wherever clients need us to be, and to be inspired by the world in between.
Hit reply and let’s talk about how we might be able to work together :)