Tag: inspiration comes from strange places

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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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Be Ready For Anything.

There was a wonderful story a few weeks ago about a trumpet player, Dr. Jesse McGuire, and something unusual that happened during the playing of a national anthem at a baseball game.

He was playing “The Star-Spangled Banner” when, suddenly, one of the valves of his trumpet froze. In that moment, he decided to put down the trumpet and sing the rest of the anthem.

Dr. McGuire’s played the anthem at sporting events around the country. He played the anthem before Game 7 of the 2001 World Series. (He was invited back to Phoenix as part of the 25th anniversary celebration of the Arizona Diamondbacks victory in that game.) He’s played in bands and in the jazz orchestra at Lincoln Center.

And something like that can still happen to someone with that much experience. It’s his experience that helped him get through that moment.

Things happen to all of us, and when they do, it’s up to you to be prepared to do something about it.

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Keep Learning.

a bunch of business books stacked in a pile

I read a fascinating obit of Victor Niederhoffer, a Wall Street trader, and these last few sentences of the obit really stood out:

His daughter, Katie Niederhoffer, said that until the last days of his life, she kept him stocked with books, everything from textbooks and biographies to books on trees and resilience.

“Every single conversation I ever had with him, he would say: Are you learning anything new?” she said. “He said it in a way that was, like: That’s the joy in life, that is the pressure of life, that is what’s expected, that is what you can hope for, is constantly learning something new.”

It’s such a wonderful sentiment. Ask questions, read books on all sorts of topics, go on new adventures — and always be on the lookout for new ideas. No matter what: Never stop learning. That’s something to aspire to.

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That photo of a stack of books comes via Shiromani Kant and 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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No Need to Rush.

I went to see Alabama Shakes last night in Salt Lake City, and just after the gates were supposed to open, a massive thunderstorm came through town. We all had to shelter in place. The opener didn’t come on until 9, Alabama Shakes went on at 9:45, and most concerts at this venue are over by 10.

I wasn’t sure how long they’d actually play. I thought they might rush through a few of their hits and get off stage quickly.

But they weren’t in any real rush on stage. They played their songs, had a few jams. There was a little banter with the crowd. The set was shorter than usual — they played for an hour, and most of their sets on this tour have been far longer than that. They didn’t play an encore.

But I was so impressed at how unhurried they were on stage. They’ve played plenty of outdoor shows over the years, and clearly, they’d been in this situation before. Aside from the shorter set, you wouldn’t have known they were walking onto the stage way later than expected, and with a curfew to meet. They played like they had all the time in the world.

I’ve been in that situation before at conferences, where an hour-long talk suddenly becomes a 40-minute session, and I wish I could say I’ve been that calm. In those situations, my strategy‘s been to talk at 2x/speed, which doesn’t really work.

But maybe the move is just to acknowledge the situation, cut some material live on stage, and move on as normal. No need to rush — you do what you can with the time you have.

Let’s call it the “What Would Brittany Howard Do?” strategy.

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I took that photo at Red Butte Gardens last night.

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What’s That Thing? And Why?

We’ve hit the age where Ben asks a million questions.

Where’s the moon right now, dada? Is it going to come up later? Is it night yet? Why is the moon bigger than yesterday? Can we visit the moon?

(Sometimes, Ben even asks questions about things other than the moon.)

There are days, I’ll admit, where I get tired of answering a thousand questions. But mostly, I love that he’s so curious. He wants to know how everything works, and often, he asks questions that I don’t have the answers to, so I get to go looking for answers. When you live with a toddler, you learn new things every day.

I want to be more like Ben: Curious and eager to learn. I don’t know it all — and I shouldn’t be afraid to ask more questions.

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We visited Bluey’s house at the CAMP store in NYC a few weeks ago. It was the perfect spot for a curious kid — Ben wanted to open every drawer to find out if there was something inside.

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Know What’s Around You.

I’m watching the World Cup today, and there’s a moment in the Argentina-Austria match. Argentina crosses the ball into the box. Thiago Almada is there, inside the box, with a clear chance to shoot on goal, but instead lets the ball pass through to Lionel Messi, who neatly finishes into the back of the net.

And as I’m watching, I’m wondering: How did Almada know that Messi was there?

It took a few replays for me to figure it out.

Just before he entered the box, Almada takes a split-second glance back and sees what’s around him. He’s there, in the image above, on the left. Messi is steps behind him. He doesn’t know yet that the ball is coming to him, but he knows that if it does, he has the choice to shoot or fake out the defender, leaving Messi wide open.

Watch #16 in the middle of the screen. It’s nothing more than a glance.

Some players would have taken the shot right away, not even realizing that their teammate was behind him. Almada, instead, made sure he was seeing the entire field — and by doing so, he set up a history-making goal.

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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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Make It As Hard As You Want To.

I was driving home last weekend, through Emigration Canyon. On a weekend, there are tons of cyclists and runners on that road — people literally biking and running up a mountain. It’s impressive to see.

But then I saw something I’d never seen before: Two men, on unicycles, riding up the mountain.

Going up that road — it involves more than 1,000 feet of elevation change — is hard enough on a bike or on two feet. But on a unicycle?

And so I got home and went to YouTube, and there were all sorts of videos of people doing even more incredible things on unicycles there. They’re doing on two wheels what I wouldn’t dare do on one.

It was a reminder for me: You get to decide what challenges you take on. And with those challenges, you get to decide if you want to do things on easy mode or hard mode.

What’s right for someone else isn’t what right for you.

(And heck, I know mountain unicycling isn’t right for me!)

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Great Ideas Come From Weird Places.

I’m reading Susan Morrison’s wonderful biography of Lorne Michaels, called “Lorne,” and this little story about Michaels and Paul Simon immediately caught my eye:

Michaels’s few off-hours that summer were spent in the studio where Simon was recording Still Crazy After All These Years, and he added, to his growing trove of showbiz stories, the one about how his friend Paul took the title of his song “Mother and Child Reunion” from the name of a chicken-and-egg dish on a Chinese menu.

An iconic song, titled thanks to the name of a menu item at a Chinese restaurant?

Yeah, great ideas can truly come from anywhere.

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