- Faster Than Normal
- Posts
- Denise Coates, Efficiency vs. Effectiveness and Embracing New Experiences
Denise Coates, Efficiency vs. Effectiveness and Embracing New Experiences
Alex Brogan
June 25, 2025 • Read Time: 10 minutes
In partnership with
This edition is brought to you by The Rundown AI
Good morning to all new and old readers! Here is your Wednesday edition of Faster Than Normal, exploring one short story about a person, a company, a high-performance tool, a trend I’m watching closely, and curated media to help you build businesses, wealth, and the most important asset of all: yourself.
If you enjoy this, feel free to forward it along to a friend or colleague who might too. First time reading? Sign up here.
Today’s edition:
> Stories: Denise Coates & Audi
> High-performance: Efficiency vs. Effectiveness
> Insights: Original thought
> Tactical: Embracing new experiences
> 1 Question: Mindful days
Cheers,
Alex
P.S. Send me feedback on how we can improve. I respond to every email.
Stories of Excellence
Person: Denise Coates
Denise Coates, founder and joint CEO of Bet365, is a rare breed in the business world. Publicity-shy but fiercely ambitious. She transformed a small chain of betting shops into a global online gambling empire. Worth an estimated $7.7 billion, Coates is Britain's highest-paid executive. Her journey began in Stoke-on-Trent, working in her father's shops. "I'm not one for the limelight," she admits. But her vision was clear. In 2000, she bought the Bet365.com domain. Bold move. She mortgaged the family business to fund it. Risk paid off. Today, Bet365 processes over £12 billion in bets annually. Coates' success? A blend of mathematical prowess and industry insight. "You start a 24/7 business and you work 24/7," she says. Her focus remains unwavering. The future? Expansion into the US market.
Key Lessons from Denise Coates:
On vision: "The Internet offered the opportunity of being a global player and it excited me hugely. I was convinced that sports betting was a natural fit for the Internet and was determined to take the business online."
On drive: "My family will say that I have always been driven and have always had the desire to be the very best at whatever I was doing."
Company: Audi
Audi's story began in 1909 when August Horch founded Audi Automobilwerke GmbH in Zwickau, Germany. The name "Audi" is Latin for "listen," a play on Horch's surname, which means "hark" in German. In 1932, Audi merged with three other automakers to form Auto Union AG. After World War II, the company was re-established in Ingolstadt in 1949. Volkswagen acquired Auto Union in 1964, and the modern era of Audi began. The company gained prominence with its quattro all-wheel-drive system, introduced in 1980. Today, Audi is known for its luxury vehicles and cutting-edge technology, with 2024 revenues of ~€65 billion and over 87,000 employees worldwide.
Key Lessons from Audi:
On brand positioning: Embrace your niche. Audi found its place between mass-market and ultra-luxury. Not the cheapest. Not the most expensive. Just right for their target market.
On design philosophy: Consistency matters. Audi's commitment to clean, understated design has built a recognizable brand aesthetic over decades. Evolutionary, not revolutionary.
Stay up-to-date with AI
The Rundown is the most trusted AI newsletter in the world, with 1,000,000+ readers and exclusive interviews with AI leaders like Mark Zuckerberg, Demis Hassibis, Mustafa Suleyman, and more.
Their expert research team spends all day learning what’s new in AI and talking with industry experts, then distills the most important developments into one free email every morning.
Plus, complete the quiz after signing up and they’ll recommend the best AI tools, guides, and courses – tailored to your needs.
Accelerants
High-performance tool
⎯
Efficiency vs. Effectiveness
Effectiveness: Doing the right things—getting the result you intend.
Efficiency: Doing things right—working with minimal waste of time and effort.
To achieve more, you must be both effective & efficient, but effectiveness should come first.
Insights
William Deresiewicz on original thought:
"Multitasking, in short, is not only not thinking, it impairs your ability to think. Thinking means concentrating on one thing long enough to develop an idea about it. Not learning other people’s ideas, or memorizing a body of information, however much those may sometimes be useful. Developing your own ideas. In short, thinking for yourself. You simply cannot do that in bursts of 20 seconds at a time, constantly interrupted by Facebook messages or Twitter tweets, or fiddling with your iPod, or watching something on YouTube.
I find for myself that my first thought is never my best thought. My first thought is always someone else’s; it’s always what I’ve already heard about the subject, always the conventional wisdom. It’s only by concentrating, sticking to the question, being patient, letting all the parts of my mind come into play, that I arrive at an original idea. By giving my brain a chance to make associations, draw connections, take me by surprise. And often even that idea doesn’t turn out to be very good. I need time to think about it, too, to make mistakes and recognize them, to make false starts and correct them, to outlast my impulses, to defeat my desire to declare the job done and move on to the next thing.”
Tactical reads
⎯
> When embracing new experiences
Dive in (Read it here)
> When developing an end-of-day ritual
Drastically Reduce Stress with a Work Shutdown Ritual (Read it here)
1 question
How do I want to spend my days?
That’s all for today, folks. As always, please give me your feedback. Which section is your favourite? What do you want to see more or less of? Other suggestions? Please let me know.
Have a wonderful rest of week, all.
Recommendation Zone
⎯
Hire remote employees with confidence
Two years ago, I hired an offshore assistant for the first time. Since then, I’ve recommended many people do the same. It’s been one of the highest leverage things I’ve done, helping with everything marketing and customer support (for The Intelligence Age) and personal matters and email management.
Athyna is a service that quickly (<5 days!) finds remote employees across 150+ countries for you or your team. They cover roles from sales and marketing to creative and product, and have worked with companies like Facebook, Zoom, Uber, Microsoft, Salesforce, and Amazon.
I’ve personally used Athyna and recommended them to my Brother, Will, who runs a fashion label, and several close friends running their own businesses. To date, they’ve all had very positive experiences.
If you’re in the market for talent, visit their website to explore options and cover all your hiring needs.
Why Faster Than Normal? Our mission is to be a friend to the ambitious, a mentor to the becoming, and a partner to the bold. We achieve this by sharing the stories, ideas, and frameworks of the world's most prolific people and companies—and how you can apply them to build businesses, wealth, and the most important asset of all: yourself.
Faster Than Normal is a ‘state' of being’ rather than an outcome. Outlier performance requires continuous, compounded improvement. We’re your partner on this journey.
Send us your feedback and help us continuously improve our content and achieve our mission. We want to hear from you and respond to everyone.
Interested in reaching Founders, Operators, and Investors like you? To become a Faster Than Normal partner, apply here.