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It Might Not Happen Today.

A funny thing about being a parent, especially a parent of a young child in daycare, is that your entire schedule can change in a moment.

One phone call from daycare — “Hey, your son has a runny nose and a weird cough, so I think you need to pick him up” — and suddenly, there goes your week. Calls get canceled, work gets postponed. That big project you wanted to do today? It’s definitely not happening today anymore! (And maybe not next week, either.)

All of this has made me weirdly grateful for the days when things go right. There are days when things actually work out, where the work gets done and your child comes home completely healthy. Those are great days, even if this winter, it feels like there are far fewer of them than before.

Still: The mindset shift is important. I used to get mad when the work didn’t get done. Now I know it’s part of being a parent — and it’s my job to adjust how I work, adjust what I work on, and adjust my mindset. I’m a dad and a business owner. This is just how things work now, and that’s part of what I signed up for.

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That’s a photo of my son carrying a reusable bag upstairs. Why? Who knows, but parenting means a lot of unexpected moments — like my son deciding that a bag is far more fun to play with than the toys we got him.

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Find Your Rubber Duck.

A few days ago, I saw Sandie Taulo Essemann do one of the smartest things I’ve ever seen a speaker do on stage.

So we’re in Odense, Denmark, for Email Summit. When I give talks in America, there’s usually a line of people coming up to ask follow-up questions or say hi. But in Denmark, the cultural tendency is to leave the speakers alone — they don’t want to bother the speaker, so they quietly shuffle out of the room.

I was talking to Sandie about this the night before the conference, and she said she’d figured out a way to get people to come up and chat with her afterwards.

“How?” I asked.

“I brought rubber ducks,” she told me.

In her suitcase, she explained, she’d brought more than 100 rubber ducks. She told me she planned to close the talk by reminding people that when they went back to work, she didn’t want them to lose the feeling of excitement that they had at the conference. She wanted them to take a rubber duck, put it on their desk, and use it as a reminder of the sense of possibility they’d felt at Email Summit. Anytime they felt like they weren’t making progress, the rubber duck would be there to remind them that they could always make things a little bit better.

So the day of the conference, I stood in the back as Sandie closed her talk with the story about the rubber duck. (Fun fact: There’s no word in Danish for rubber duck. They just use the English words.)

I’ve spoken in Denmark three times, and at this point, I’ve seen lots of speakers give talks, both in Danish and English, but I’ve never seen more than two our three people ever go up to the speaker afterwards.

And then I watched, with amazement, as Sandie finished the talk, and more than 100 Danes stood in line to say hi to her, ask her questions, and take home their very own rubber duck. (And I saw a ton of people scanning a QR code to sign up for her newsletter. These are people who didn’t just get a free rubber duck — they’re also going to become Sandie’s fans, and maybe even clients one day.)

It was an absolutely brilliant icebreaker, and an example of a speaker going the extra mile to really connect with her audience.

(Now the only question is, because I’m 100% stealing this idea for myself: What should my version of a rubber duck be for my next talk?)

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That’s Sandie introducing the rubber duck concept on stage! (I got one of the last ones. Since I got home, my son has refused to end bath time until he plays with it.)

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It’s The Little Things.

I ate at NOMA last week — a restaurant that’s widely considered to be one of the best, if not the best, in the world — and what I can’t stop thinking about is the napkins.

Yes, everything we ate was extraordinary, and the service was exceptional. But what sets NOMA apart are the little things. It’s the way you arrive at the table and the food you’re about to eat — the crab and fish and veggies — is sitting there on the table for you to observe before it goes into the kitchen to be prepared. It’s the details about the dish that the staff relay to you before you eat.

It’s the napkins.

A meal at NOMA is a multi-hour affair — our meal was more than a dozen courses and four hours long. I stood up at one point to use the bathroom, and when I came back, my napkin was no longer where I’d left it. I couldn’t figure out where I’d placed it.

I sat down, and that’s when I noticed it. The napkin had a small piece of string on the back, and the staff — in the 90 seconds while I was gone — walked over, and hung the napkin on the side of my chair.

It was such a tiny detail. Who spends time thinking about where your napkin should go when you stand up? But the fact that they did think about it, and then figured out such an elegant solution? That they took the time to made sure to put care and attention into the absolute smallest elements? To me, that was almost as impressive as the Norwegian king crab.

(Though, don’t get me wrong: the Norwegian king crab was darn good, too.)

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That’s the little hook on the back of the napkin. It was clearly something they’d made themselves — they took a linen napkin, sewed on a small piece of fabric to attach the hook to, and then inserted the string around it.

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Be Grateful For the Opportunity.

Back in 2021, I got the chance to speak at Email Summit DK, Denmark’s largest email conference. (It’s also one of the biggest email conferences in all of Europe.) I loved the event — the warmth of the attendees, the incredible venue, the little touches.

And this week, I got to go back and stand on that stage again — this time in front of 600 people.

And as I closed my talk, I told the attendees this: It’s not lost on me what a gift it is for all of us to get together, for a day like this. We have so many things competing for our time; it’s so easy to stay glued to our desks. So to see everyone, in one place, sharing and learning and eager to grow — that is an incredible thing, and I’m grateful to be a small part of it.

I’m lucky to get the chance to give talks like this. Each and every one still feels special. I’m grateful, as ever, for the opportunity.

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That’s a photo of me on stage in Odense, Denmark, at Email Summit 2025.

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No Skips. No Fast-Forwarding. Be Here Now.

I had this moment yesterday where I wanted to skip ahead.

I sometimes get jealous of the parents who have a few kids who are already in elementary school. They’ve gotten through the toddler years where kids get sick every 20 minutes. (My son has RSV right now; so does everyone in his class.) They’ve gotten through sleepless nights and potty training. They can take their kids on big vacations and really do fun stuff with them.

Plus, they don’t need as much attention every day — so I could reclaim a bit of that time to get stuff done at work.

And then I thought about it some more and remembered: I don’t want to skip ahead. I don’t want to miss these moments. I hate that Ben is sick, but there are also wonderful moments these days, too. Yesterday, he climbed into my lap and gave me a huge hug — in a few years, he’ll be too big for that! (At this pace, he might be too big for that by July.) Those moments won’t last forever.

So I’m writing this to remind myself: I don’t want to hit fast-forward. I want to be here, right now, in the moments that will never happen again — big smiles and new foods and new experiences and colds and restless nights and all of that. This is part of the journey; I want to make the space to really be here for it.

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That’s a photo of Ben wearing my sunglasses around the supermarket. When I talk about not skipping ahead, I’m talking about moments like that — he’s such a silly little guy!

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Take Care of It Now.

A fun thing that’s happened twice in the last week:

I’ve been on a call and suggested a small tweak that a client make to their website — and right there, on the call, they go into their site and make the tweak.

No adding stuff to the roadmap, no meetings to discuss the changes. They heard the idea, liked it, implemented it, and then asked, “What’s next?”

When you’ve got the right idea, and you’ve got the time to make it work, you don’t need to wait. Just take care of it now.

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That image of a black mouse on a black mat next to a black keyboard comes via Marko Hankkila and Unsplash.

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A Goal for 2025.

I set a big goal for 2025 — something I’ve never set in the six years I’ve run my business.

My big goal isn’t around revenue.

It isn’t about growth.

It isn’t about launching new products.

My goal? I want to be able to ski or play golf 50 times in 2025.

To me, success isn’t about building the biggest, most profitable business. It’s about making something that brings in the revenue I need, has the impact I want, and gives me the time to do the things I love.

If I can run a business that does all three, then I must be doing something right.

Here’s to a lot more days on the mountain in 2025 — and on the links this summer.

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That’s me on the mountain at Deer Valley a few weeks ago. If you see a tall guy in a loud jacket skiing around Park City, it might be me!

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A Mantra for the Year Ahead.

Fireworks and smoke, as seen from ground level looking up at the Space Needle in Seattle on New Year's Eve.

As I look forward to 2025, I’m thinking about this mantra: I want to offer uncommon and unexpected value with everything I do.

Uncommon value, as in: Doing things that no one else is doing.

Unexpected value, as in: Going above and beyond with my work.

Let’s do uncommon and unexpected things in the year ahead.

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That photo of fireworks exploding near the Space Needle in Seattle comes via Nitish Meena and Unsplash.

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Habits, Not Routines.

A black typewriter sits on a wooden desk, with a lamp shining a light over it.

I’ve found that it’s easier to do just about anything if you’ve got a little momentum behind you. It’s easier to get yourself to work out if you’ve done it the day before. It’s easier to make time to write if you’ve written the day before. I could go on, but you get the idea.

But it’s hard to build that repetition when you’ve got a child to take care of. I’m fascinated by the stories from people who say, for instance, that they wake up super early to squeeze in a workout before their kids get up. I love that idea, and I’m inspired by their work ethic — but I’ve found that my son has a funny habit:

If I try to get up early, he’ll somehow get up earlier.

I know that if I try to create new routines in the new year, they’ll get easily interrupted. So as I think about the year ahead, one thing I’m interested in is the idea of building good habits without building a corresponding routine. For instance: I want to do more writing, and I think I can make a few hours every week to write. But instead of trying to build a routine around it — i.e. every morning, after breakfast, I promise to spend an hour writing before checking my email and getting to other work tasks — my goal is to make space for the habit when I can. Maybe that means I have 15 minutes to write one day, and an hour the next, and no time the day after. That’s OK! The bigger thing is the intention — that I want to make writing a priority.

I don’t believe, at least at this moment in my life, that I can build a consistent routine around these habits the way that I could five or ten years ago. The question is: Can I still build the habit without the routine?

We’ll see how things go in the new year.

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That’s a lovely image, taken by Yusuf Evli for Unsplash, of a black Mercedes typewriter set against a brown desk, with a black lamp shining a light over it. It seems like a lovely place to write. (Mine is a windowless room in our basemen. Not quite as picturesque, but it gets the job done!)

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Not All At Once.

We’ve been rewatching “Friday Night Lights,” and I’ve been thinking about this line from Jason Street:

“Yeah, you can have it all, but you can’t have it all at once.”

He’s right, of course. There is so much I want to do, and so much I believe I can can do.

But I can’t do it all today, or tomorrow, or next month. There are plenty of things I won’t even be able to do in the next year.

I’ll have to choose what I focus on. I’ll have to say “no” to things I might be excited to do.

I can do a lot — just not all right now.

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