Tag: keep going

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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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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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Declaring Parenting Bankruptcy.

I declared Parenting Bankruptcy last week.

What is Parenting Bankruptcy, you might ask?

Well, last week was one of those weeks where everything seemed to go wrong. My wife got strep. My son got hand, foot, and mouth disease and had to be held out of daycare. The heat broke in our house.

And the day we were set to send our son back to daycare, there was a pinkeye outbreak at his school.

It was just one of those weeks.

Sometime around Wednesday, I decided that I wasn’t going to get anything big done. I had some sizable projects that I was hoping to tackle — and it was very clear those weren’t going to happen. My only goal was to make it to the end of the week.

So I declared Parenting Bankruptcy. I cleared everything off my to-do list, and made it my only goal to get to Friday.

The hard part about parenting — at least for me, a dad with a toddler — is time management. (I’m betting that I will have a very different take on this in a decade!) When things are good, there’s a good balance between parenting and work. But when a few things go wrong, the balance gets entirely out of whack.

I’ve had tough weeks before, though I can’t recall one where I kicked all of my to-dos to the next week. This was my first time declaring Parenting Bankruptcy.

I’m sure I’ll do it again one day. This whole “being a dad” thing isn’t always easy; there will be more days and weeks like this.

But I also have to remind myself: There will be even days and weeks where things are great, where my son is an absolute joy, and where I’m so grateful that I’m a dad.

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That’s a photo of my son reading at this little table in our living room, in a far quieter and less hectic moment than the one we went through last week.

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Start Anywhere.

I ask myself this a few times a quarter when projects start to pile up: I’ve got a lots of things to tackle. Where should I start?

And the truth is: You can start anywhere — as long as you start.

I know I can find myself paralyzed by all those choices. Instead of getting stuff done, I end up worrying about all the stuff I have to get done. (And then I find myself with a lot less time to actually do the things I need to do!)

Don’t worry about finding the perfect starting place. The end result is far more important than where you start.

Start somewhere, and go from there.

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That’s a photo of an American Airlines jet taking off, with pink flowers blurred in the foreground and the moon behind. It was taken by Sachin Amjhad for Unsplash.

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Don’t Miss An Opportunity to Miss an Opportunity.

I read this line in a New Yorker article, and I haven’t stopped thinking about it since: “They never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.”

There have been so many times when I’ve showed up for something without knowing exactly what I might get out it. I didn’t want to miss out on something, even if I wasn’t sure what it was! When you show up, you don’t always stumble into something good — but sometimes, you do. (Case in point: My MLK Day story.)

Point is: There are certain opportunities that only come along when you take the time to show up. Don’t miss the opportunity to miss an opportunity. Just show up and see what presents itself.

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That’s a photo of a departures board with flights from Singapore’s airport to destinations around Asia. It seemed as appropriate a photo for the “show up” message as any. It was taken by Benjamin Wong for Unsplash.

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Just Fix This One Thing.

It’s been a busy week. We went to a wedding last weekend and are going to another in 48 hours. I’ve got some new clients starting this month, a few talks coming up, and generally just a lot of work happening. It’s a ton for a small business like mine — and of course, having a 1-year-old at home adds a whole lot to your plate.

So I really could’ve done without coming home on Sunday night to find that the garage door opener wasn’t working. it was just one thing too much for me to handle — the classic straw that broke the camel’s back.

I got myself twisted in knots for a few minutes about the garage door opener. I procrastinated for a day and got myself more angry about it. Really? Now this? And then I stopped spinning my wheels and decided to fix just the one thing.

I went to YouTube (bless you, YouTube), and found a tutorial. Two minutes later, I’d fixed the garage door. (Turns out it was a super simple fix. I literally just had to push a button.)

I still have a mountain of work to do. But just getting that one tiny task completed felt like a victory. I did this one thing — I can do the rest.

I didn’t need to do it all. I just needed to take care of that one thing.

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That photo of a pale yellow garage door, with shadows creeping up the wall, was taken by Tim Mossholder 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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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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Keep Coming Back to Your Lists.

I have all sorts of to-do lists. I’ve got a list of ideas — “somedays,” I call them — that I want to try. I’ve got notes written down on yellow legal pads and in various Google Docs. I know I won’t act on many of these ideas.

I never worry about running out of ideas, but I know that sometimes, I forget about a really good idea. So it’s helpful to keep coming back to these lists to look through things. What am I still excited about? What could I work on as part of another project? Often, I find a chestnut in one of these docs — but I have to make sure to make time to review and give each of the ideas some thought. I don’t want to let anything slip through the cracks.

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That photo of a small notepad and wooden pencil on top of a wood table, was taken by Michaela St for Unsplash.

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