Tag: do the work

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It’s Good to Feel Small.

A photo of the muddy Colorado River, running beneath the red rocks near Moab, Utah.

We’re in Moab, visiting Arches National Park, and I found myself along the banks of the Colorado River this afternoon, looking up at these beautiful red cliffs hundreds of feet above us. It made me feel small.

With what I do, it’s easy to feel like every decision I make is big. A choice to take on a new client feels big. A talk on stage at a conference feels big. To expand the team or expand into a new line of business? Very big.

But I know I work in a niche specialty in a tiny corner of the internet. What I do matters to me, and I’m lucky that it matters to others, too. But what’s big to me is — with the right perspective, stepping back and looking up at the world around me — quite small.

It’s humbling to be reminded of my place in the world. I also found it, oddly, a bit empowering. If what I do is small, then shouldn’t my efforts to make an impact on the world be equally small? I don’t need to do something tomorrow that changes the world. I need to find ways to help others, one person at a time, over and over again. My goal should be to do small, impactful things that help in my community, knowing that those little actions will add up to something big.

At least within my little corner of the world.

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I took that photo, today, alongside the Colorado River near Moab, Utah.

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It’s Your Problem.

I was listening to a podcast this week with Zach Baron, a GQ editor who handles a lot of their celebrity profiles — he just interviewed Tom Cruise for the magazine — and he was asked an interesting question: Who’s the most difficult celebrity you’ve ever interviewed?

His answer was revealing: He said that if an interview doesn’t go well, that’s not the celebrity’s fault. “It’s really only my problem to make this thing go well,” he said.

I’ve been thinking about that response for a few days now, and I really love it. I do plenty of interviews, and I also moderate events, like workshops or conferences. Some go great, and some are less than great. But maybe I need to start reminding myself beforehand: It’s my problem to make this thing go well. It’s my problem to show up, be prepared, get interested, and keep the energy high in the conversation. And if things, doesn’t go well, there’s no need to blame others.

It was my problem all along.

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You Have to Make Time For You.

A woman does a push-up on a green soccer field.

There was a stretch of a few years where, every night, I did 10 push-ups before bed.

10 doesn’t seem like a lot. Actually, to rephrase: It isn’t a lot! It takes less than a minute to complete.

I started doing those nightly push-ups as a way to remind myself that every day, even if I was busy, I could do something small to take care of myself. And yet: I still managed to fall out of the habit of doing it.

What I’ve learned is that it takes a really long time to build a habit, and not all that long to break the habit. That’s been true for anything I’ve wanted to do, from reading more to learning a language.

It’s easy to start, and it’s easy to quit.

It’s hard to keep going.

There’s always another priority: Work, family, a thousand little errands. Something else ends up higher on the to-do list.

But I have to remind myself — and I’m writing this at the moment to remind myself — that it’s OK to make time for yourself. We all have to.

So if you’ll excuse me: I’m off to go to a few push-ups before bed.

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That is a photo of someone doing a push-up with form I really need to study. It was taken by Monika Kab for Unsplash.

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Get It Out Into the World.

In 1990, a Canadian TV channel called Citytv launched an unusual little experiment: They created a video booth in which anyone from the public could enter and record a message. The best of the recorded messages would air on a weekly TV show, called “Speakers Corner.”

A year later, a band called the Barenaked Ladies popped into the booth. “Hi, we’re Barenaked Ladies, and we’re a little too cheap to make our own video,” said Steven Page, one of the lead singers of the band. “So here you go.” Then the band, smushed into the booth, broke into the song “Be My Yoko Ono.”

What happened next? The video became their first music video, and the song became their first charting hit up in Canada.

And they did it all on a song recorded in a tiny booth in an office building in Toronto.

When you have an idea, you can wait and try to make something perfect — or you can try to get it out into the world as soon as you can.

Always, always do the latter.

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Stay Curious.

Chris Miquel had me on his podcast the other day, and he asked me: There’s so much that the newsletter community is excited (and nervous!) about when it comes to AI — but is there one thing you think we shouldn’t hand over to AI?

And I thought for a moment. Probably seemed like longer on the podcast.

And then I said: Our curiosity.

AI can handle so many things: It can write, edit, create, brainstorm. It can analyze data. It can turn tedious processes into one-click actions.

But I hope that as we integrate AI into our lives, we don’t lose that sense of curiosity. So many of the best things that have happened in the newsletter space — and in the world, of course — have come because of our curiosity.

What happens if I try ______ ? What happens if I experiment with ______ ? What happens if I ask my readers to do ______ ?

Nearly every week, a client asks me something I’ve never been asked before, and that I’ve never seen before, and I say: “I’m not sure, but let’s try it and see what happens.”

These tools are endlessly powerful, but I don’t think they can see the world quite the way we can. Use them — but stay curious.

The curious are the ones who break through.

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Figure Out Your Level of Risk.

A pile of white, multi-sided dice.

I had a conversation a few weeks ago with a friend who’s thinking about leaving her job to start her own thing. She asked for my advice, so I gave her something I wish I’d thought more about at the start: When you start a business, you need to figure out your level of risk.

Some people are willing to place big bets on their business. There are plenty of stories out there about people who hired big teams before they had a proven product or put tens of thousands of dollars on a credit card with no clear path to paying off that debt. Some are OK taking on a lot of risk.

I tend to be a bit more risk-adverse. So much of my business is built around coaching calls, where I work with small teams for a low annual fee. If I took on larger projects, I’d make a lot more money, but coaching is far more stable — I start the year knowing how much I’ll be bringing in that year. My coaching clients tend to renew their contracts year after year. Bigger projects, on the other hand, come and go.

Before you start, it really helps to understand how much risk you’re willing to take on. My strategy means that my business has a fairly high floor but a slightly lower ceiling. You might be willing to take bigger swings for a bigger reward — even if it means the chance of failure is a lot higher.

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That photo of dice comes via Zoshua Colah and Unsplash.

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Try On Lots of Hats.

I can’t tell you why, but when I was 18, I decided I wanted to be the kind of guy who wore a Kangol hat.

I wore it for a few months, very much as an experiment. I was a kid trying to figure who I was and how to build a sense of style that felt true to me.

It’s been almost 20 years, so I can say, with absolute confidence now: I was definitely not a Kangol hat kind of guy. But there’s still a little bit of that sense of experimentation in everything I do.

I try on new hats, more figuratively than literally, all the time. What would it look like for me to start a business? To move to a new city? To become a dad?

Lots of what I try to do every year is test out new stuff and see how it feels. Is this for me? Does it feel true to who I am?

I keep trying on new hats, always with the hope that I might find something great. Sometimes, I do. Sometimes, I end up looking back with embarrassment on the things I’ve tried.

You just have to keep trying anyway.

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Yeah, that’s me at 18 in a backwards Kangol hat. You live, you learn.

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Be Willing to Prove It.

The Jim Bridger billboard, as seen roadside in Salt Lake City.

A few months ago, I started noticing billboards around town with a photo of a guy who looked kind of like Davy Crockett and a message: “Jim Bridger discovered the Great Salt Lake.“ I didn’t think much of it.

But I kept seeing them — you can’t drive five minutes in town without seeing a billboard with Jim Bridger’s face on it.

So then I got curious: Who was spending all this money to promote an explorer who died almost 150 years ago?

Turns out: It’s actually an experiment in proving that advertising works.

There’s a company, Reagan Outdoor Advertising, that owns all these billboards. They had a challenge: How do you prove the ROI, or return on investment, on a billboard to an advertiser?

So they came up with their own experiment.

They told the Salt Lake Tribune that they surveyed locals about Jim Bridger before the billboards went up, and they’ll do so after the campaign is over. Then they’ll have data to share, showing that locals went from knowing nothing about Bridger before to knowing at least a little bit about him after. A lot of locals are going to say, “Yeah, isn’t he the guy who discovered the Great Salt Lake?“

And then they’ll make the pitch to local businesses: If these billboards could have that kind of impact about a previously-anonymous 19th century explorer, then they could surely have similar impact for a modern brand.

It’s a great reminder: If you’re going to make the claim, you need the data and the story to prove it first. And if you don’t have the data, well: You might need to get creative to dig it up.

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I took that photo of the Jim Bridger billboard in Salt Lake. It’s the same billboard everywhere — same copy, same yellow background, same drawing of Bridger.

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You Still Have to Put in the Work.

I have been doing the consulting thing since 2019. I have done more calls, more audits, more interviews, than I ever could have imagined. Sometimes, I think that I’ve done so much of this work that I’ve seen it all — that there’s nothing left to learn.

Every time I start to think that, I stumble onto a new problem, a new challenge, or a new opportunity, and I realize I don’t know how to do this just yet. No matter how far I go with Inbox Collective, there is always more work to put in, new things to learn, and lots to be curious about.

Sometimes, people ask me if I think I’ll do this job forever. I doubt it. One day, I’m sure I’ll find that I’m not interested anymore in putting in that work, asking that extra question, or trying to learn that new thing. That’ll be the sign that it’s time.

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That photo of three men washing windows in Singapore comes via a photographer named Victor and Unsplash. It doesn’t have much to do with this post. I just liked the photo.

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Running on Empty.

a rusty old gas tank in front of a barn in Latvia

This was one of those weeks where it felt like everything happened. I launched a new product. I held a webinar. I talked with 15 different clients. I sent a thousand emails (give or take). I helped a ton of clients with end-of-the-year projects. 

And then Ben got sick, and so did I.

There was a moment on Friday afternoon when I thought about taking on a bit more work. I had a lot more stuff to do. But Ben was down for a nap.

So I took a nap, too.

You can’t operate on empty. You have to make time for yourself. Take a week. Exercise. Cook yourself dinner. Read a book. Go to bed at a reasonable hour.

Do literally anything other than work.

Yes, you’re busy. We all are. But the work isn’t going to be very good if the tank is empty.

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That photo of an old gas tank, left out to rust somewhere in Latvia, was taken by Krišjānis Kazaks and shared via Unplash.

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