I write 1-minute insights daily. Below are my latest. Like? Enter your email to get updates.
I help busy people do inner work.
I write 1-minute insights daily. Below are my latest. Like? Enter your email to get updates.
…I’ll tell you what the worst way is: not having it at all.
Everything after having it, I’d say, is in the direction of better.
Awkwardness, yelling, and upset included.
…Better than what happens when it doesn’t happen at all.
Because if a hard conversation is necessary… and it’s not being had… the gap in misunderstanding only continues to widen as time passes which only makes the situation harder and harder.
Starting the conversation is precisely the thing that stops the widening.
…It’s what prevents the gap from opening any further.
It’s what stops the hard exactly where it is and allows the two sides an opportunity to either build a bridge or acknowledge the gap for what it is… and at the very least stop hoping for the gap and difficulty to solve and close itself.
…Which, either way, (finally) moves things in the direction of easier.
…Aka better.
Before I publish or share or create anything—I want it to be subjectively perfect.
I obsess over the smallest of details and will stubbornly refuse to ship until I either exhaust my list of details or myself.
And even when I exhaust myself… I still oftentimes won’t ship. In fact, I’ll use it as an excuse to further delay projects.
Most recently, I’ve been recording videos. And my goal is to keep the process as simple as possible—for the reasons I just outlined. One platform, one message, one take.
And of course, like clockwork, my social media algorithms have suddenly started feeding me video optimization content.
Things that talk about angles, and lighting, and transitions, and iPhone camera settings, and titles, and subtitles, and hashtags, and music choice, and captions, and hooks, and triple hooks, and the god hook, and green screens, and editing tips, and virality hacks, and…
…And this is exactly why I stopped making videos before.
My current mantra is this: reject optimization at the outset.
…Simply get into a rhythm producing content in a way that’s aligned with me—not the algorithm.
Not that there’s anything wrong with playing the social media game… just that it’s not for me right now.
The reason this blog has lasted as long as it has is because I’m not trying to hack anything. I’m not trying to optimize or broadcast or write for what ranks well on search engines.
I’m writing for myself—in hopes that it also might help others.
And I need to remind myself that these videos are going to serve the same purpose.
Onward.
Driving home from an amusement park this past weekend, I looked at one of my friends and replayed a moment for him as the Spotify queue loaded up the next song.
“I meant what I said when we were on our way up to the top of that last roller coaster…”
“…Use that moment to never forget the weekend.”
And he looked at me, turned down the volume of the song that started playing and said, “I appreciate that man. But you know what? I don’t think that’s gonna be the moment that triggers the memory of the weekend for me…”
He said, “There’s this quote I love from the movie Up that goes, ‘That might sound boring, but I think the boring stuff is the stuff I remember the most.’ And I think the same is true for me, too…”
“…What I’m going to remember are the ways we passed time while waiting for hours in lines for rides, the way we spent our time the night before we even got to the amusement park, the inside jokes that spontaneously arrived throughout.”
“…What I’m going to remember is The Propaganda Of Big Goop.”
And we both laughed wildly.
And the fact that you don’t know why is exactly what I think he’s talking about.
…It all happened in a boring moment outside of a bathroom when we were stopped for a food break on our roadtrip. And not when we were at one of the peak adrenaline moments of the whole weekend trip.
…And I suspect the same might be true for you, too, if you look a little closer at the cherished moments of your life.
One of my employees sat me down in my office yesterday and explained to me why he thinks some of our students are getting bored and what we can do about it.
It’s the… “and what we can do about it” part that impressed me.
People come to me with problems essentially my entire work shift each day.
Parents having problems with their kids, kids having problems with other kids, instructors having problems students, students having problems with the curriculum, something in the school is broken and has become a problem, associates realizing that something in our system is broken and has become a problem, and so on.
Granted, it’s a career I love and this isn’t a complaint about the problems I’ve professionally chosen to take on.
It’s more so a highlight of how valuable and refreshing it is to have somebody come to me with… solutions.
And it makes them stand out because the default seems to be, “It’s not my job to fix this…” or “I’ll deal with this later” or “I can’t wait to get home tonight to watch my show…” and it gets swept under the rug and/or forgotten about and/or pawned off on somebody else.
A rule that was told to me years ago that I try my best to carry with me for everything I do is, “Don’t come to me with a problem unless you also have a solution to go with it.”
Run through a normal day in your head.
Does your mind see, “obligation, obligation, obligation…etc.”
…Or does it see, “Chance to gift, chance to gift, chance to gift, etc.”
…Suddenly, you might start to realize why you’re feeling so run down and worn out or overwhelmed with gratitude and joy on the daily.
I haven’t published them anywhere online yet… but, the library is loading…
I stopped making videos years ago because I complicated the process.
I obsessed over every detail of each video and eventually burned out.
And what I realized from that process is that what I really cared about was the core content behind the production of each video—the written word; the message.
So for years, that’s all I’ve been focused on producing. Short, insightful, written messages to help busy people do inner work—myself included.
What’s been on my mind as of late, however, is how there’s another gap to bridge.
…Just because I “word wrestled” and clarified some thoughts and came up with a core message for a day… doesn’t mean that that message was internalized.
And that’s what creating videos again is helping me do—internalize my clarified thoughts.
I’ve simplified my process significantly. And for now, the goal is to publish to one platform, one message, that was recorded in one take.
I’m not reading the words I wrote verbatim and splicing together multiple takes. What I’m doing behind the scenes is internalizing the essence of the message and challenging myself to convey it authentically by recording that one take again, and again, and again… until I get that one, uninterrupted, concise, clearly communicated train of thought.
…You know, as it would be done in reality, in conversation, in practical every day use.
If you’re going to boycott something to starve it of resources (of your own at the very least), don’t forget to actively invest your resources elsewhere to help the alternative grow.
Because not participating altogether isn’t helping anything better grow just as it isn’t helping what you’re avoiding grow—you’re essentially just becoming a bystander/spectator.
Don’t like what you’re seeing on social media?
Don’t like what you’re hearing on the news?
Don’t like what a company did to their employee(s)?
Starving it of your time, energy, attention, and money is an excellent option.
…Creating social media that you wish you saw more of?
…Covering stories and/or spotlighting people that you wish you read more about in the news?
…Choosing to buy from companies that have good culture, good business integrity, and high moral code?
Now that’s the type of effort that leads to a better world.
It can’t just be about tearing everything down and/or opting out of the system altogether.
It has to be about building something better in its place.