Tag: lessons learned

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Do a Little Extra.

I tried a little experiment in my newsletter today. At the top of the email, I wrote:

I’ve found LinkedIn to be a useful channel for meeting new folks and discovering interesting newsletter content, and I’d love if you connected with me there. But if you do, will you also attach a note to your connection request? I accept pretty much every request as long as they add a note…

I got about 20 requests on LinkedIn today. Of them, seven had a note attached.

I find that to be amazing. I don’t personally know most of the people making these requests — I hadn’t met one in person, to my knowledge, and in many cases, I hadn’t even received a previous email from them! Why would I connect with someone who I don’t even casually know?

I think part of this is how LinkedIn is set up. It’s really easy to send a connection request without adding a note. (In fact, I did that this evening — I clicked the button to connect but it didn’t pop up with the ability to send a message.) I’m also a little bummed — if I knew that these folks were definitely readers, I’d happily connect with them.

I know some people on LinkedIn hate all the notes because they feel obligated to reply to each one. (I usually reply with a “thanks, and thanks for reading!” Takes two seconds to do so.) But the little bit extra goes a long way — at least in my book.

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That’s the basic LinkedIn request form: “How do you know this person?” The screenshot is from Barry Schwartz and is re-used here thanks to a Creative Commons license.

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I Don’t Know Yet.

Election Day was Tuesday, and the results are still rolling in. We know who the President will be, and we know who will control the Senate. The House is still up for grabs, and two toss-up Senate seats are not yet called, as well as many other local races around the country.

And yet, 48 hours later, I’m seeing a lot of pieces offering explanations as to what happened and why.

So what happened?

The truth is, we don’t really know yet. Most of the data — not just votes, but the behind-the-scenes data that can inform why people voted the way they did — isn’t in. We might not know for a while why the results were what they were.

I understand the desire to rush to provide answers. It’s frustrating to have to wait to understand something that just happened.

But what often happens is that the wrong lessons pop-up in the few days after the election, and those stick around even when they’re later proven inaccurate. I’d rather wait — the data, however long it takes, will help us understand what’s really going on (and what might happen next).

This is one of those cases where the only right answer — in the short-term, at least — might be to say, “I don’t know yet.”

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That photo of the red and blue of states on the electoral college map comes via Clay Banks and Unsplash.

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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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What Are You Going to Do About That Mistake?

I screwed something up today.

My son had an important doctor’s appointment today in Salt Lake City. It was an appointment with a specialist who’s tough to get time with. We booked the appointment a few months ago.

And today, I showed up to the appointment — and found out I was two hours late. We’d put the wrong time on the calendar, and the next available appointment isn’t for a few more months.

I wanted to scream, cry, and crawl under a rock. (Ideally, all three at the same time.)

But anytime something like this happens, I try to figure out a plan to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

So for big appointments like this, I’m putting a few new rules in place. I’ll double-check the appointment time against texts or emails the doctor’s office might send. If they don’t send that, I’ll call the office directly to confirm the time. And you better believe that for something like this that requires a drive, I’ll be checking Google Maps the night before to make sure I get to the appointment on time.

Mistakes happen, and that’s OK. But if you do make a mistake, figure out the processes you can put in place to prevent them — as best you can — going forward.

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That’s a photo of the sunset over the hospital down in Salt Lake, with the mountains in the background. Honestly, it might have the prettiest view of any hospital I’ve ever seen.

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Look Up.

I bought this piece of art today at the Farmer’s Market downtown. It’s a big piece of wood, probably about five feet long, and on it is a carving of the mountains here in Utah. This week, I’ll hang it behind my desk.

But the memorable thing for me wasn’t the purchase of the art — it was walking it to the car.

Now, you’d think that a guy my height (I’m about 6’4’’) carrying a five-foot-long piece of wood might get noticed while walking down the street. I’m hard to miss! And yet: In that short walk, I cannot tell you how many people nearly walked directly into me.

Look, I’m as guilty as any of being distracted by my phone. But today was a nice reminder: The stuff directly in front of you might be pretty important. (Walking into me or that piece of art would’ve been a less-than-fun experience for someone.) It’s easy to miss things happening in our world, but we shouldn’t be missing the obvious stuff that’s literally right in front of our faces.

So look up every once in a while — hopefully to pay attention to what’s happening in your world, but at the very least, because you might be about to walk into a tall guy carrying a big piece of art.

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I don’t have a photo of the art, but here’s a photo that Olivia Hutcherson took for Unsplash of downtown Park City in 2018 at the Farmer’s Market, with small white booths lining the street and red flowers in the foreground.

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So What Are You Doing Here?

We moved this month from New York City to Park City, Utah. It’s gorgeous here — I’m writing this as the sun sets, and I’m watching it set from my living room window.

On a daily basis, I see people biking and running on the trail that runs near our backyard. I see people with kayaks strapped to their roofs and people with hiking backpacks heading out for a big hike.

These first few weeks here, for me, have been filled not with outdoorsy trips but with other stuff — with calls, with emails, with lots and lots of unpacking.

So Sally and I have had this recurring conversation: If we’re going to live in a place this wonderful, we need to take advantage of it. I don’t know if we’ll be here for a year or forever, but I need to treat it like we’re only here for a short period of time — that way, I’ll have the urgency to take advantage of this place and do all the stuff I should be doing in a city like this.

I could work from anywhere, but I’ve chosen to live here. And if I’m not going to make time to enjoy this place, what exactly am I doing here?

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I took that photo on a morning walk with my son here in Park City. It was sunny and bright — basically a perfect morning to walk along one of the city’s many trails.

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Make Time to Review.

Jon Stewart did this great interview the other day with Matthew Belloni on “The Town” podcast, and this part really stuck with me:

Jon Stewart: Post-mortem is the gift to the gods in terms of improving content and really anything.

Matthew Belloni: So Tuesday morning, it’s, “What did we do right? What did we do wrong? Did this land? Did this not?”

Jon Stewart: It‘s Monday night, and it has to be an agnostic process. It’s not a blame process. It’s always a constructive, like, “How do you feel that worked out?” You always have to be self-examining, reflective of the process, little things, because it’s the only thing that keeps you on top of it.

It’s a lesson I think more of us could apply to our work.

Running an end-of-the-year campaign? Make sure you put time on the calendar the week after the campaign ends to review everything and document lessons for next time.

Launching a new newsletter? Set up check-ins on the calendar every few months to make sure you’re meeting your goals and want to continue investing in that newsletter.

Building a new business? Make sure you hold quarterly reviews to track what’s what working, what isn’t, and what you want to do next.

It’s not enough to put the work out into the world. You also have to make space to review, reflect, and iterate.

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That photo of Jon Stewart accepting a Peabody Award on stage in 2005 — he’s in a black suit with a dark tie and is behind a podium with a gold replica of the award — comes via the Peabody Awards and a Creative Commons license.

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Just Ask The Question.

Before my son was born, I wondered how long it would take before I asked a truly stupid question.

Other friends had told me their stories about asking that first dumb question. One friend confessed that they called the pediatrician’s emergency line the first night home from the hospital because their child was crying. “Yeah, they’ll do that,” the pediatrician chuckled, and hung up. Another told me that they misinterpreted the doctor’s instructions before leaving the hospital. They called the pediatrician the day after they got home, reporting back that they child had pooped three times when the doctor had told them to make sure their newborn pooped once. “We meant at least once, not only once!” the pediatrician laughed. Every new parent, it seemed, asked something stupid.

I was a new dad who’d never changed a diaper before. The only thing I knew for certain was that I knew nothing. I knew I was going to ask something dumb — eventually, at least. 

It took me 45 seconds.

Ben was born, and the doctors called me over to a little scale where they were weighing Ben. I looked down at his tiny feet. They were black.

I hadn’t remembered reading anything about black feet in any of the parenting books.

So I asked them: Are his feet supposed to be black? Is that normal?

That’s when they held up a piece of paper with his tiny footprint on it. They’d pressed his feet in black ink to make the footprint.

It was the first of what would be many, many stupid questions.

But getting that first one out of the way really did help! With a baby, new stuff happens all the time, and I quickly became unafraid to ask, even when I knew the answer was going to be something obvious. I didn’t have to preface questions with, “I know this might be a dumb question, but….” I just asked.

I constantly remind myself: There’s so much I don’t know, and there’s no reason to pretend like I know everything.

Even when it feels like it might be a stupid question, I now just ask.

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That photo at top is of me the night we got home from the hospital. I’d changed about five diapers at that point. I didn’t have my technique down, but hey, I got better.

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