Saying it twice isn't a moral failing.
Repeating yourself, doing it in different ways, is a useful response to the distractions, browsing and scanning that your audience is hooked on.
It's not your fault that the world is cluttered and filled with distractions. If it's important, it's worth saying twice.
PS new Akimbo episode today is about writer's block.
A flag is a signal. It's vivid, abstract and it represents memories and expectations.
A constitution is studied, dissected, challenged, amended, fought over.
That next thing you're working on as you build your culture, your practice, your brand, which is it?
No sense arguing over the design of your flag. Better to focus on what it stands for instead.
Roger Bannister did something that many people had said was impossible.
He ran a mile in less than four minutes.
The thing is, he didn't accomplish this by running a mile as fast as he could.
He did it by setting out to run a mile in one second faster than four minutes.
Bannister analyzed the run, stride by stride. He knew how long each split needed to be. He had colleagues work in a relay, pacing him on each and every section of the mile.
He did something impossible, but he did it by creating a series of possible steps.
It's easy to get hung up on, "as possible." As fast, as big, as much, as cheap, as small…
The Bannister Method is to obsess about "enough" instead.
Interesting non-fiction often falls into one of three categories:
a. It's interesting because it's by or about a celebrity. People Magazine and various autobiographies appeal because they offer an intimate glimpse into someone you were already interested in. This is a lot of the appeal of social networks–famous to the family, telling their story.
b. It's interesting because an unlikely thing actually happened to a real person. Books about climbing Everest, starting a company or surviving drug dependency or a dysfunctional upbringing work because they happened to someone else, and we want to watch or vicariously experience what happened.
c. It's interesting because it's about us, the reader. These are books or blogs that offer a path forward, that talk about part of the human condition that you're currently experiencing, that offer solace or guidance or insight about what's happening and what's next.
We're all writers now. What makes you interesting?
Why does a class last an hour? Why does a TED talk last 18 minutes? Why does an MBA take two years?
Could it be that the default lesson length has something to do with the cost of switching rooms, which makes it inefficient to have really short lessons? Or the high cost of physical space, which makes it expensive to have really long ones… Perhaps length is a function of switching costs and bureaucracy structure…
One side effect of the low switching costs and high availability of choice on the web is that people are discovering things in 600-second bursts.
What would happen if we started to do this on purpose? Learn a math lesson, understand a social history movement, learn something about human nature, five minutes have gone by…
Or what if we chose to dive in really deep, deeper than the real world would ordinarily tolerate. Five hours on a topic that might only get three minutes on a typical curriculum… or a month-long interactive seminar designed to teach something that's almost never taught.
I don't think learning is defined by a building or a certificate. It's defined by a posture, a mindset and actions taken.
It's still early days in figuring out the best way to transfer knowledge. The length of a class ought not to be set in stone. (For the very same reason that meetings at work should never last an hour).
In an instant-on, one-click shopping universe, the idea of sacrifice is pretty alien. When the world might end tomorrow, when you can get what you want now, when debt is easier than ever to go into, why even consider sacrifice?
Because it's the single best way to achieve your goals. Satisfaction now almost always decreases the reserves we have to build an asset for later. Investing in something worth building always requires you to avoid getting what you want today. Sacrifice might mean giving up an expenditure, but it can also be the bold step of having a difficult conversation now instead of later.
Regardless of the goal, sacrifices make it more likely that you'll get there.
The journey toward that worthy goal, though, is a key part of the goal itself. We are never certain we'll reach our goal, one significant reason that so few people persist. But if the journey involves sacrifice, we're paying for that goal, the goal we're never sure to reach, every day.
Hence delight.
The act of sacrifice, of foregoing one thing in our journey toward another one, one more generous, virtuous and useful, is actually a little piece of the satisfaction of the goal itself.
If it comes easy, it's not the same.
White space is your friend
No, you can't watch us work
Be open to things you didn't imagine
Be confident, not arrogant
Nothing takes a second
Don't be rude
Tell me the problem, not the solution
Decide who will decide
Have clarity of purpose
Bonnie Siegler has more than 60 in her delightful new book.
Being first is insufficient.
Google wasn’t the first search engine. Facebook wasn’t the first social network. Apple wasn’t the first home computer, phone or smart watch. Amazon wasn’t the first online bookstore.
Before Sonos, before Alexa, before Google Home, there was the HomePod. [pic 1, pic 2]
In 2004, Dan Lovy and I launched a device that could take the music on your hard drive and play it through your stereo. And some other stuff, too. You certainly don’t own one. We were five years too early for early adopters and ten years too early for the beginning of the mass market.
I’ve jumped the timing before.
You can see the same thing happen to inventors of online shopping carts, ad networks, auction sites, ad formats, file sharing, crypto applications, all of it… Even non-profits and musical styles.
I’ve embraced that pattern for years. Going first. It’s thrilling. Not particularly profitable, but thrilling.
Too often, we come to believe that there’s some sort of idea race going on. While some need the froth and magic of the new, it turns out that culture is changed by persistence most of all. Be an inventor if you choose, but don’t expect that you’ll be the one driving the bus once the masses decide to get on.
[The third episode of my Akimbo podcast is out today. It’s about VF 145: The Square Tomato. The podcast is now one of the top 100 in the world, thanks to you.]
My sourdough rye bread failed. For the first time since I've been baking from this starter, this weekend's batch didn't work.
I know why.
I rushed it.
I didn't let the dough ferment long enough.
And then I made the oven hotter, in an effort to get the loaves finished so I could leave to meet someone.
That's not how great bread works. It's ready when it's ready, not when you need it to be.
Of course, the analogy is obvious. Much of the work we do as creators, as leaders, as people seeking to make change–it needs to ferment, to create character and tension and impact. And if we rush it, we get nothing worth very much.
There's a flipside.
Sometimes, we mistakenly believe that we're building something that takes time, but what we're actually doing is hiding. We stall and digress and cause distractions, not because the work needs us to, but because we're afraid to ship.
Impatience can be a virtue if it causes us to leap through the fear that holds us back.
[PS thanks for your support for Catherine Hoke's new book. Loyal readers like you made it a national bestseller on its first day–only Michelle Obama had a faster-moving book. If you didn't get a copy yesterday, I hope you'll check it out. It will change you in ways you don't expect. Here's a review that got posted yesterday:
Odds are, you've never been to prison…but as humans, we're masters at creating our own. Our prison may be the shame of our past, a desire for perfection or our need for acceptance. The walls might be the potential we haven't realized, a loved one we hurt or even a conversation we never got a chance to have.
By bravely sharing her personal story and the behind-the-scenes look at the important and generous movement she's leading at Defy Ventures, Cat Hoke gives us all a second chance…to speak up, to lead and to make a difference.]
The first time I met Catherine Hoke, she changed my life. That's what she does at Defy. She changes lives.
After more than a year of persistent nudging, I was finally able to persuade her to share her story and her wisdom in a new book.
I'm thrilled that it came out this morning.
Defy works with men and women who were formerly incarcerated. They work with business leaders who are used to being treated with respect and privilege. And they work with volunteers across the country.
Mostly, what Defy does, what Cat does, is help people understand that forgiveness is a powerful tool, one that's easily overlooked. That when you're busy holding a grudge, it's difficult to open your arms to the possibility that's all around us.
Alex Peck and I spent nine months helping Cat bring this book to the world. We've donated 20,000 hardcover copies to Defy, so that every copy sold contributes 100% to their important work.
I hope you'll buy a copy (or several) today. It's a game changer, and I'm confident you'll be glad you took the leap.
Here's an unsolicited note we got the other day:
I finished reading A Second Chance yesterday and immediately started it again. It is easily the most impactful book I have read in years, if not ever. I find myself continually referencing it in conversation and can't wait for others to be able to read it. I have a list of people I'm ordering it for. I've been giving out copies of What To Do When It's Your Turn for years and now I have a new book I can't wait to give to people.
Thank you, Seth and the rest of the team for your investment in Cat, Defy and this book. The work of Seth and the Domino Project have been tremendous influencers on my life and work for years and this book takes that to a whole new level.
Best regards,
-scott
