Knowing it all is just the beginning

by Leave a Comment

Reading Time: < 1 minute

When hosting our Meetup last week about professional development for marketers, Robert made a simple and profound statement — “there are no experts”.

He clarified, and I agree, that there are a lot of people out there that are very wise, many of whom know a lot more than we do. However, as soon as anyone claims the “expert” title for themselves and tries to just rest on their laurels, they can quickly fall behind.

I love the way that John Miller put this idea in his book “QBQ“, when he said:

Wisdom: What we learn after we know it all

A lot of people can become very smart in many areas. Those that push through and keep learning even after they “know it all” generally end up being the most wise.

Warren Buffett is arguably the most successful investor of all time, yet he still reads as much as six hours every day! In our eyes, he “knew it all” 20 years ago, but kept pressing forward and becomes more wise every single day.

There’s certainly a point where you can push too hard and burn out, but if you leave yourself open to constantly learning at a higher level, your ceiling will grow with it.

Two years of daily blogging

by Leave a Comment

Reading Time: < 1 minute

Today marks two years of blogging every single day (minus a week when I had COVID). The past year has been super interesting, but my reasoning, cadence, and publishing have all been roughly the same.

As explained in a recent episode of “The Long and The Short Of It” podcast about “Practice versus Project“, this is very much a practice. Their episode explores the topic very well, but my main takeaway is that a project has a finish line, and a practice doesn’t. There is no finish line to this blog, putting it solidly in the “practice” area.

I think a common practice is exercise. You may have some goals along the way, but the primary goal is to stay fit and continue to exercise regularly. There’s no finish line, but there is achievement all along the way.

That’s where I am here. I’ve learned a lot over the past two years, but I’m more excited about what’s to come in the next 20.

I’ve explained more about this in some old posts, so I’ll link those below for you to check out, and from there I’ll keep it moving forward!

Why I’m Writing Every Day
Some thoughts on why I decided to start doing this.

Get Writing in 2021
Some related thoughts from Seth Godin on why you should blog daily.

Blogging beats journaling
Why I blog in public rather than journal in private.

To write more, read more
How I find ideas for new posts.

How I plan out my future posts
Some thoughts on getting my posts organized.

WordPress Editorial Calendar plugin
A great (free!) plugin that I use to help lay out my blogging schedule.

Sharing the posts I write
My daily plan (at least at the time) for sharing posts after they’re published.

Empathy is more than just caring

by Leave a Comment

Reading Time: < 1 minute

I talk about empathy quite a lot on here, as I believe that those with more empathy are generally able to make better decisions about many aspects of life. However, it’s easy to think of empathy as just “caring about others”, when that’s really not the point.

There’s also the idea of attunement, which can muddy the waters a bit. When it comes to empathy, though, “Blind Spots” author Madeleine Van Hecke says it takes these two pieces:

Empathy requires two elements: a genuine caring about the other person and the ability to see the world through the other person’s eyes. It’s perfectly possible to be empathic but still trip up because we are blind to another person’s perspective.

At the end of the day, empathy is about understanding what people are feeling, which by nature should lead to a bit more caring. If you understand how someone is feeling and why they feel that way, you’re likely to have a deeper sense of caring for that person.

Of course, empathy doesn’t necessarily mean that you agree with the other person. You may understand what is causing someone to feel a particular way and you may still completely disagree with that reason, and that’s perfectly fine. I work hard to understand the viewpoint of others, particularly those that I don’t agree with, as it helps me see more issues from more angles.

In most cases, simply getting to a solid place of empathy is enough to understand those around you, which will generally make the world feel like a better place to live.

How strongly do you support your favorite political candidates?

by Leave a Comment

Reading Time: 2 minutes

I’ve shared a few times my affection for “purple people” — those that are willing to vote for candidates that will best serve us, rather than just blindly voting their party line. In every election, every time, there are some pretty bad characters on both sides of the aisle. How you act regarding those politicians will often impact my view of you more than my view of them.

I really see it two ways:

  • If you are someone that I know and trust, and you offer rational thoughts about a candidate, I’ll consider them. Even if it’s someone I don’t personally support, a reasonable argument from someone I trust can go a long way. Despite memes to the contrary, my political views have shifted a bit over the years thanks to solid words from solid people.
  • On the other hand, if your support for a candidate is mostly yelling and name-calling, I’m not really sure who that it supposed to help. I’ll probably have even less support for that candidate, and likely a lower opinion of you as well.

If you think this post is directed at you or your favorite politician, it’s really not. There are dozens of people running in the upcoming races that could be considered a “bad character”, and this applies to all of them. I know people that can offer solid arguments in favor of virtually everyone running, and I appreciate those that can speak clearly about what they believe and why they believe it.

I also know plenty of people that can only show their support for a candidate by putting down the other side, which is an sad way to show their support.

Know who you’re voting for, know why you’re voting for them, and don’t be afraid to show a little purple on your ballot if that leads to a better outcome.

Be curious, not judgmental

by Leave a Comment

Reading Time: < 1 minute

In the fantastic Apple TV show “Ted Lasso”, Ted drops a quote that he attributes to Walt Whitman: “Be curious, not judgmental“. It likely was never said by Whitman, but the effect of the quote still stands. In the case of Ted Lasso, Ted wraps this around it:

Guys have underestimated my entire life. And for years I never understood why. It used to really bother me. But then one day I was driving my little boy to school and I saw this quote from Walt Whitman painted on the wall there that said “Be curious. Not Judgmental.” I like that.

So I get back in my car and I’m driving to work and all of sudden it hits me. All them fellas who used to belittle me, not a single one of them was curious. You know, they thought they had everything figured out. So they judged everything. And they judged everyone. And I realized that their underestimating me, who I was had nothing to do with it. Because if they were curious, they would have asked questions.

You can see the scene play out here:

It ties a lot into the idea of trying to understand “how someone could think that way” that I shared a few days ago. They might be uninformed, or perhaps they have more information that you do. You could judge and ridicule them, or you could find out what’s really behind their actions.

Be curious, ask more questions.

Who can see your website right now?

by Leave a Comment

Reading Time: 2 minutes

I’ve come across two very different website visibility-related situations in the last few weeks, and I thought they were interesting cases on how Google is able to see your site. They’re both related to “the magic checkbox” being misused.

The first is with a friend of mine. They’re building a new site with another company, and I was curious how things were coming along. Their current site is, let’s say, “theirwebsite.com”. The new site is being constructed at “hidden.theirwebsite.com”. The problem is that the word “hidden” is meaningless by itself — you need to literally tell Google not to visit the site, which they failed to do. As a result, the site is completely open to Google and is being indexed as we speak, which is how I found it. This is foolish, and will likely lead to some negative impacts on their current site.

It’s like when Michael “declared bankruptcy” on The Office; you need to do more than just say it out loud.

The second story was more public, and more troublesome. An Arizona GOP Secretary of State candidate was furious that Google wasn’t showing his site in their search results. He referred to them as “crooks” with their “deep state algorithm”, that “deplatformed” him with their “censoring”. Here is a sample tweet of his:

The reason, of course, was the magic checkbox. His team had checked the box in WordPress that said “Discourage search engines from indexing this site” and, well, they did!

Google even responded directly to him, explaining what he did wrong and how he can fix it.

This points to some deeper problems at play with him here, involving either poor communication, a lack of trust, or simply a lack of competence. In his case, it almost feels like it was intentional and he really wanted to play the victim, because even after he was clearly shown the reason why, he continued to vent on Twitter about how awful Google was. It’s very strange. Techdirt has a great write-up of the entire incident if you’d like to read more.

This is a great example of how little things can make a huge difference. I expect only mild issues from what my friend did, but Mark Finchem’s site will be feeling the effects of this for weeks to come (it can take a while for Google to completely reindex and rank your site), and now a bunch of us have only heard of him because of this foolish mistake.

Really, it comes down to solid processes, and both of these examples are likely lacking in that area. A process can feel restraining at first (who wants more checklists?), but they help prevent situations like these so that you can focus on the job at hand without making simple, brutal mistakes.

Sometimes you should make things more difficult

by Leave a Comment

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Back in high school, I was a fantastic three-point shooter — during practice. If I could just pick a spot and keep getting balls sent to me, I could hit them all day. I think my best was like 23 in a row. Games were a different story, though, and I was considerably worse than average. I needed the groove, but that groove didn’t help on game day.

I’m trying to do the same on the driving range as I work to improve my golf game. After I hit 6-8 shots with my driver, they start to look pretty good! I get in a groove and it’s solid. Working with that groove can be helpful to build mechanics, but the groove doesn’t exist on the course. During a round of golf, I get one tee shot every 15 minutes, with a half-dozen other clubs in-between. Learning to hit the 10th consecutive drive perfectly is of little value when each drive on the course is essentially the first one.

To help combat that, I try to switch clubs frequently on the range and simulate working through holes, changing out clubs after almost every shot. I’ll reshoot bad ones repeatedly to fix them, but I don’t want to rely on a groove that won’t exist on the course.

Learning works the same

I’ve done the same thing for years with my Anki flashcard decks. For a while, I kept the cards in separate decks by category, but that let me get into a groove that didn’t replicate real life. Instead, by mixing them up and having a quote show up after a geography question, it forced my brain to work harder and learn the content on a deeper level. More about that can be found in this post from a few years ago.

My habits on the driving range and flashcards are both more intentionally difficult than they need to be, but I think the results are worthwhile. I wonder if I have other habits that I could introduce some difficulty into in order to make them more beneficial?

The other guy isn’t pure evil

by Leave a Comment

Reading Time: < 1 minute

You know the other guy. The one that is up against the politician that you love. The one that you can’t understand how anyone could support.

They’re probably not as good as their supporters think they are, but they’re not as bad as you try to make them out to be.

Madeleine Van Hecke said it perfectly in her book “Blind Spots“:

It takes great courage to come to grips with the reality that our cause may not consist of pure righteousness and that our enemies do not represent pure evil.

Support your side and fight like hell, but just realize that the other side is unlikely to be the devil himself.

What is your phone number?

by Leave a Comment

Reading Time: < 1 minute

We’re getting to a point where phone numbers matter less and less. Names are saved in my phone so I don’t have to remember them, but a phone call or text is just one of a dozen ways I can contact someone.

As we head toward an essentially number-less future, some relics from the past keep popping up. Just this week alone, I’ve seen a handful of situations where people gave out multiple phone numbers “so I’m easy to reach”, when the reality is that it makes it more difficult.

A man gave me his business card this week, which included a “mobile” number and an “office” number. Which should I call to reach him? If he doesn’t answer one, should I leave a message right then, or try the other one next and leave a message? It’s silly.

“What is your phone number?” – singular.

A more strange example was a landscaping truck that I was behind in traffic. The back of the truck explained what they did, and included two prominent phone numbers stacked on top of one another. There was no indication of what each did, just two numbers to call. Why? Do they go to two different people, so I just try both repeatedly until I get someone?

Clarity always wins

It’s a small thing, but clarity is always your best choice. If you want someone to know where to call you, give them the number. If you need to have multiple places to pick up calls, VoIP systems can help with that, or you could even use a free Google Voice account. Don’t put the burden on your customer to figure out where to call, just make it super easy for them to reach you and begin that connection.

If you can’t understand “how someone could think that way”, that’s a problem

by Leave a Comment

Reading Time: < 1 minute

I see it on social media a lot, and I’m sure you do too:

  • “I don’t understand how someone could believe that”
  • “I don’t know how someone could support that particular political candidate”
  • “Why would she do that?”

In most cases, people have solid reasons for what they believe. You may disagree with their reasons, but understanding where they’re coming from is a great place to start. You may not initially understand why someone could vote for “that person”, but there are likely some solid reasons behind that vote.

In her book “Blind Spots“, author Madeleine Van Hecke says it this way:

It’s very hard for most of us to admit that our judgment of others as idiots is as much a comment on our own blind spots as it is on the flaws we detect in other people. Those flaws may be devastatingly real, but if we truly cannot understand why or how others think or act in the way they do, then we, too, must have a blind spot: something is preventing us, at least at the moment, from grasping the perspective that differs from our own.

Understanding the perspective of others has nothing to do with agreeing with them, but working to see things from their eyes can help expand your own viewpoint. It’s like I shared last year, I find great value in trying to see things from both sides of the aisle. It’s not easy, but can help you gain empathy for others and can lead to some productive and informative conversations in the future.