Tag: lessons learned

Posted on

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.

Posted on

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.

———

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.

Posted on

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.

———

That photo of a stack of books comes via Shiromani Kant and Unsplash.

Posted on

Imperfect, Then Done.

The new Inbox Collective website went live the other day. We’d been working with the amazing team at CamelCase for months on this, and to be honest, the day the website went live, it wasn’t really done. There were things to fix, content to add, entire pages still to build. The site’s been live for a few weeks, and we’ll be adding more to it for weeks to come.

So why launch the website when it wasn’t fully done?

Because I know myself, and I knew that if I waited until everything was perfect, I’d be waiting forever to launch. But the sooner the website was out in the world, the more pressure there was on me to start making it better right away. It’s one thing to tinker and tweak in the background, and it’s another to do it when my entire audience can see the holes in the website that need to get fixed right away.

On a project like this, it’s not the deadline that drives me — it’s that little bit of public pressure and scrutiny.

Plus: Readers can help spot some of the mistakes for us! Just today, a reader noticed an issue on our About Us page. (The same contributing writer was listed not once — but four times.) It happens, but those extra sets of eyes mean that we can catch mistakes a bit faster.

(Btw, the CamelCase guys did a fantastic job. Any mistakes or flaws with the website are on me — they did everything they needed to in order to make this new site a success!)

Posted on

Be Bored.

That’s a very large moose in the wild on a hike here in Park City, Utah.

My son is curious about everything, and there are times when his curiosity lasts a lot longer than mine. We’ll be on a walk in the park, and he’ll spot an interesting plant. I’ll want to move on; he’ll want to linger.

And I have to remind myself that for Ben, time doesn’t mean anything. He doesn’t have appointments to keep or errands to take care of. He doesn’t know what day of the week it is. (He doesn’t even know the names of all of the days of the week!) He’s got his curiosity, and he’ll chase it for as long as it lingers. If it means that we’re doing nothing at all — literally, just sitting next to a plant for 15 minutes and looking at how prickly it is — that’s OK! We don’t need to fill every moment with activities.

I’m not great at this — weirdly, doing nothing makes me feel a little anxious. I keep asking myself: Couldn’t we be using this time more productively? But then I remember that Ben doesn’t care about productivity. At the end of the day, he knows if he had fun, not if he got a lot done.

So I’m trying to get better at it, too, just sitting with my thoughts (and Ben’s questions), and being bored. What’s fun for Ben can be fun for me, too.

———

My wife and I went on a hike the other day and spotted a moose. Seeing a moose in the wild hasn’t gotten old yet. (I hope it never does.)

Posted on

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.

———

I took that photo at Red Butte Gardens last night.

Posted on

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.

Posted on

Predicting the Future is Hard.

the ESPN article that predicted the future team.

Here’s a little reminder that humans are really, really bad at predicting the medium- to long-term future.

A friend sent me a list of soccer players who might play for the US men’s national team in the 2030 World Cup. It was exciting — look at all these future stars who’ll sure guide the USA to greatness!

And I was a true bummer and sent back ESPN’s predictions from 2022 for the 2026 roster. That list mentioned 31 names for new players who might make the team — players who weren’t on the 2022 squad.

Exactly one 1 out of 31 made the 2026 squad.

And look, that’s soccer. That’s a list that looked at players, all who were playing professional soccer at the time, some for major clubs in Europe, and saying, “Hey, I bet these guys will be even better in four years.” We’re talking about something that should be decently predictable.

And it got 1 out of 31 right.

I’m not trying to pick on the writer from ESPN. (He’s excellent, and a fellow Mizzou grad to boot!) Predicting the future is really, really hard.

It’s a reminder: Don’t get too caught up with what’s happening way down the road. Focus on the immediate future: Next week, next month, next quarter. Keep your eyes on the next steps and you’ve got a better chance to keep moving forward.

Posted on

Have You Considered the Obvious?

Me, teeing off on a par 5. I hit the ball right over the bunker and into the woods — exactly where I was aiming.

I was playing golf over the weekend, and every shot was going straight and to the right. I was so frustrated. I’ve gotten pretty good at figuring out how to diagnose my mistakes and correct them during a round of golf, but I’d never seen this one before. A slice, a hook, hitting the ball fat or thin — I know how to fix any of those, but I couldn’t figure this one out. I tried a bunch of things during the round, but nothing worked. Every shot was a “push”: Straight, and to the right.

Then my buddy sent me a photo of myself after my round. My shoulders were lined up square to the target, but my feet were pointed way right.

I wasn’t pushing the ball to the right — I was hitting it directly where I was aiming.

Sometimes, the obvious fix is right in front of you.

Posted on

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.

———

That photo of dice comes via Zoshua Colah and Unsplash.

Proudly powered by WordPress