Tag: inspiration comes from strange places

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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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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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Do Your Prep Every Single Time.

I did a stupid thing today.

I was driving down with my son to pick up my wife at the airport. It’s an easy drive — 35 minutes, especially on a low-traffic day like a Sunday. There was no one on the road when we left home. We left two hours early so I could run a few errands beforehand. I was already thinking about activities to fill all the extra time we might have.

The drive was going fine — until it wasn’t. About two miles before the highway exited the canyon out into Salt Lake City, we hit a standstill. What we didn’t know was that an 18-wheeler had crashed, and the road was completely closed. It would take officials nearly eight hours to re-open the road.

I almost always check Google Maps before we leave, just to make sure there’s no traffic to be aware of. Had I done that today, it would’ve re-routed me to an alternate road. That trip to Salt Lake would’ve taken an extra 15 minutes.

I didn’t, though.

Instead, we got stuck in traffic for over an hour. Luckily, after a whole lot of waiting, police were able to route smaller vehicles like mine over a bridge and to an alternate route. We did make it to the airport for pick-up — it just took two hours for what should’ve been a 35-minute trip. Even more luckily: My son napped through most of the traffic.

Still, it was a reminder: No matter matter how many times you’ve done something before, you still should go through your routine. A five-second check of Google Maps would’ve saved me 90 minutes.

Next time, even if it’s the 1,000th time I’ve done something, I’ll still make sure to check.

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That’s the photo I took while stopped in the canyon on I-80 today. We saw a out of red lights for a very long time. I’m grateful we didn’t have to sit there for 8 hours — I’m not sure what we would’ve done!

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The Second Why.

One funny thing about becoming a dad is watching how kids start to process the world. What I’ve noticed is that nobody — not even professional reporters — ask as many questions as little kids.

It’s one thing for a parent to get the initial question: “Why’s the sky blue, dad?”

The parent will give the answer. But then they’ll ask a second question: “Why?” And then a third or a fourth why.

It’s funny: In a certain way, kids are often more curious than a lot of the working professionals I know. I’m guilty of this myself: I might ask “why” once to a colleague or client, but if a satisfactory answer is provided, I won’t dig deeper.

And I want to challenge myself to be prepared for that second why. I want to be prepared to know more, to go deeper.

If I’m asked or if I’m not, I should be prepared to defend what I know — or at least be prepared to give more than the surface-level answer.

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That’s a photo of a young girl with brown hair reading, as the pages of a book flip before her. It was taken by Johnny McClung for Unsplash.

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A Year Ago Today.

I’ve been keeping a daily journal for well over a decade now. Every night, I write a little note to myself about what I did that day or what I learned. Often, I’ll go back and look through old entries to remind myself of the progress that I’ve made or the things I’ve done.

But what I didn’t expect about parenting is that my phone’s photo album would be just as powerful of a reminder tool.

I’ll often look back through the archives to see what photos I took a year ago on this date. With a one-year-old, the photos are astonishing — could our son really have been that small a year ago? That bald? Remember that outfit? He used to fit into it all the time! Remember that trip we took? Yeah, that was a year ago today, too.

The time really does go by as quickly as everyone says, and it’s by grounding yourself in these moments from the past that you can appreciate the progress. I know a year from now, I’ll be amazed at the things my son is doing that he couldn’t in the fall of 2024.

Make time to pause and to rewind. We all need those moments to show us how far we’ve come.

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That’s a screenshot of my phone’s photo album. A funny thing happens when you have a kid: You replace lots of photos of food and trips with literally thousands of photos of your kid.

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Use Your Imagination.

I played golf over the weekend at a par 3 course near me. Most par 3 courses are what’s known as a “pitch-and-putt” — you rarely have a shot longer than 100 yards, so each hole involves a fairly short shot and then a putt or two.

This is not that kind of course.

This is a par 3 course that involves shots over long stretches of desert bush and water. The greens are devilishly sloped, and you sometimes have to hit the ball close to 200 yards just to land on the green.

It’s truly not an easy course. I usually shoot a better score on a full-length golf course than I do on this par 3 course.

But one thing I love about it is that it inspires me to try shots I wouldn’t otherwise try. The other day, I ended up literally between a rock and a hard place — there was a boulder 20 feet in front of my ball, with the hole maybe 10 feet beyond that. At first glance, I had no chance to get my chip shot anywhere near the hole.

But then I took another look around the green. Behind the hole was a huge slope that, if I could land my ball on it, would feed the ball back to the hole.

So instead of playing my shot at the hole, I aimed 25 feet past it. My ball landed on the slope and trickled backwards. Maybe 10 seconds later, it stopped less than a foot from the hole.

It’s not a shot I would’ve tried on any normal golf course, but on this one, it made perfect sense.

And I’ll say: It reminded me that sometimes, you need to use your imagination to figure out the right answer. Solutions aren’t always as straightforward as they could be. So look around for alternative paths, even ones that seem a little ridiculous. There are options out there — some good, some bad, some risky — if you know where to look.

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That’s a photo of one hole on the course, which features what’s known as a Biarritz green — basically, imagine a giant halfpipe in the middle of the green. Depending on where the hole is that day, you may need to putt either up or down a slope that’s about five feet high.

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It Takes Longer Than You Think.

Last night, we went down to Sundance to see a few singer-songwriters from Nashville — Trannie Anderson, Josh Jenkins, and Matt Jenkins — perform on stage as part of a series of concerts with Nashville’s famed Bluebird Cafe. Together, the three of them have written songs played by some of the biggest artists in country music: Lainey Wilson, Walker Hayes, Keith Urban.

But as they told stories about their work, one thing came up over and over again: It takes an awful lot of writing songs just to get one song on an album. The Jenkins brothers told a story about writing a song for an artist, who passed on it — before deciding to record it several years later. Anderson told a story about working a job as a dog walker for a famous country musician who ended up recording one of her songs almost a decade later. All of the artists on stage said that they might have to write a 100 or more songs just get one that’s worthy of being recorded. (And there’s still no guarantee that the song will end up on an album!)

Sure, there are overnight success stories out there, but to me, the night was a reminder that it usually takes a lot of work, a lot of patience, and a lot of rejection to get to where you want to go.

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I took that photo during the show. The stage at Sundance is absolutely spectacular — it’s built into the hill, with just a little backlight against the dark night sky. If you get a chance to go there for a concert, you should.

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What Comes First.

I read this line today in a story about Costco founder Sol Price, and I keep thinking about it:

“Everything was about trust. He would rather lose your business than your trust.”

There are things that are more important than making a profit (though Costco certainly does that). I think about this a lot with Inbox Collective — what matters most to me? For my work, it’s about:

• Being willing to listen to readers and serve them.
• Teaching first, and selling second.
• Making sure that everything I put out is something that people can learn from.
• Helping people find joy in their work.

If I take care of my readers, I know the business will flourish in the long run. No matter how the business evolves, I know those core value will remain.

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That photo of a lighted Costco sign in the darkness was taken by Henry & Co for Unsplash.

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Spinning in Circles.

My son has this funny habit. We’ll take him upstairs to the hallway in front of his room. There will be a few doors open: One to his room, one to the guest bathroom, and one to the guest bedroom. Ben will start to crawl towards one room — but then pause, and spin towards another, and the pause, and spin towards a third. Sometimes, he’ll spin in a circle, for an entire minute or two, unsure what room to crawl towards. There are just too many choices!

And I get it! I often do this myself. I’ll have one too many choices, and instead of just making a choice, I spin my wheels and end up going nowhere.

But the next time I find myself doing that, I’ll try to think about Ben moving in circles. When he does, I try to give him a little pat on the butt to nudge him forward. It doesn’t really matter what choice he makes — he just needs to make one. I need to remember to do the same.

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That photo is from Joel Fulgencio for Unsplash, and it’s of a series of blue walls, with holes cut in the middle, that are in Hong Kong on top of a parking garage. It reminds me a little of when you’re standing between two mirrors, and the reflections seem to go on forever.

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