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He wanted to be home for dinner

May 15, 2025 by mickmel Leave a Comment

Reading Time: < 1 minute

Following in the footsteps of those that have gone before us can be a wise thing, but it’s important to see where those footsteps lead. Even if they lead to great success, what else comes along for the ride?

As I shared last year, most of the “successful” people we hear about had miserable personal lives. In some cases that was perhaps intentional, but most of them wanted the great personal life as well and simply destroyed it too much on their rise to business stardom.

Fortunately, there are many that don’t. Even some ruthless business tycoons made sure to leave time for their family. In the book “Becoming Steve Jobs“, Apple CEO Tim Cook shared this about Jobs:

“If you look closely at how he spent his time, you’ll see that he hardly ever traveled and he did none of the conferences and get-togethers that so many CEOs attend. He wanted to be home for dinner.”

I see this a lot in the people that I surround myself with. Just off the top of my head I’m thinking of people like Adam and Ali and Robert and Greg and so many others that “miss” events in the evening in order to spend time with their families. It’s intentional, and for people like that it’s an easy and automatic decision. There’s no hang-wringing or tough decision about what to do — I believe all four of them have told me the exact same thing at one time or another: “I’d love to go to that event, but my kid has a game tonight and I’m going there instead“.

They want to be home for dinner, and it’s easy to do if you make it your top priority.

Filed Under: Encouragement, Leadership

Building the skill of happiness

May 12, 2025 by mickmel Leave a Comment

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Earlier this year I shared how I love when people have the ability to have a good day. It’s not that every day is good, but that they can see the good when it arrives.

It’s a great ability to have, and it’s one that you can control. There’s the simple idea of just working to always “see the good”, but there are also bigger things you can do to help shape your life to have that perspective.

In “The Almanack of Naval Ravikant“, they share these words from Naval about building the skill of happiness:

“How does someone build the skill of happiness? You can build good habits. Not drinking alcohol will keep your mood more stable. Not eating sugar will keep your mood more stable. Not going on Facebook, Snapchat, or Twitter will keep your mood more stable. Playing video games will make you happier in the short run—and I used to be an avid gamer—but in the long run, it could ruin your happiness. You’re being fed dopamine and having dopamine withdrawn from you in these little uncontrollable ways. Caffeine is another one where you trade long term for the short term.”

While I already abstain from many things on there, it’s certainly not all of them. Is it worth trying to knock out a few more? I tend to think so.

It reminds of some of the values of Charlie Munger, ironically from a different Almanack (“Poor Charlie’s Almanack“), where it shares:

“The quotes, talks, and speeches presented here are rooted in the old-fashioned Midwestern values for which Charlie has become known: lifelong learning, intellectual curiosity, sobriety, avoidance of envy and resentment, reliability, learning from the mistakes of others, perseverance, objectivity, willingness to test one’s own beliefs, and many more.”

I don’t think it’s a mistake that some of the most successful humans of all time, including Ravikant and Munger, are also very careful about how they treat themselves and others around them.

The lessons from both of these men will help you to be happier, more successful, and likely live longer. Seems like pretty good traits to emulate.

Filed Under: Encouragement

The next right thing

May 7, 2025 by mickmel Leave a Comment

Reading Time: < 1 minute

I recently read the book “Smart Brevity“, which shares ways to make your communication more succinct and impactful, and I encourage you to give it a read (the book itself is quite succinct and impactful).

Beyond the tips on brevity, they shared a different story that really stood out to me. In a world that can be complicated and the “right” answers hard to find, they offered a simple solution. From the book:

Jim sat stewing in the pew of Christ the King Church in Alexandria, Virginia, while David Glade, the pastor, talked about the difficulties of being good. He told a story about how his kids wondered, with all the chaos and challenge of life, how a person can choose to do the right thing, always.

Pastor Glade wanted to shrink this big existential question into something more digestible. He offered to his kids nine words of wisdom that guided us through our departure—and shaped how we live our lives today: “All you can do is the next right thing.”

None of of can “do the right thing, always”, but we can always do “the next right thing”.

You may have made a poor decision with your work, your vote, your relationship, or something else, and that’s in the past. However, you always have a chance to do the next right thing. It seems like a good lens to view life through.

Filed Under: Encouragement

How do they do it all?

May 5, 2025 by mickmel 5 Comments

Reading Time: 2 minutes

There are a variety of people out there that seem to be able to do it all, and do it very well.

Michael Caldwell is the mayor of Woodstock (Georgia), owns a thriving digital agency, has an amazing family, and yet he’s able to spend time with people without any stress.

Adam Walker has five kids, hosts a handful of podcasts, runs TogetherLetters and a few other companies, yet he’s able to hang out and catch a round of Fortnite with me quite often.

Seth Godin has blogged every day for decades, hosts regular podcasts, and has published like 20 best-selling books, yet always seems at ease.

David Persson has an amazing family, is on multiple boards, runs a company, works at another, and is currently training to run a marathon in every state in the US.

Ali Green co-owns GreenMellen with me, is working on another start-up, has two amazing kids with her husband, is room mom at her school, volunteers constantly, attends every sporting event her kids are in, yet she’s 100% present with everyone around her.

What gives? Are these people all superheroes? These five very well might be, but that’s not the only reason for their success — they all know what to skip.

In my mind, I think “if they can do it, so can I”, so I should continue to blog daily, start publishing a bunch of books, run for office, start another company, volunteer a ton more, and start running a bunch of marathons. They can do it, I can too! Not really.

  • Michael doesn’t post videos on social media and doesn’t blog regularly.
  • Adam doesn’t run marathons and only blogs sporadically.
  • Seth isn’t on social media at all.
  • David does minimal on social media, isn’t mayor of any city, and his kids are older.
  • Ali doesn’t blog and has no plans to write a book or run a marathon (as far as I know).

Comparing ourselves to others is easy, but you need to look at each person individually. It’s like David Senra said a couple of years ago with “you need to envy the entire life“. Taking bits and pieces is an interesting way to look at things, but you need to see everything as a whole.

I admire and respect those five people as much as anyone around, and I’m still amazed at what all of them are able to accomplish on a regular basis. I just also need to remember what they’re not doing that makes it all possible.

Filed Under: Encouragement, Productivity

Break text free

May 3, 2025 by mickmel Leave a Comment

Reading Time: 3 minutes

The world of text is in an interesting place. Books are more accessible than ever (in terms of availability and format), yet most of our text-based communication is becoming more and more inaccessible.

The book “The Future of Text” unpacks this, and shares their view of things (from a few years ago):

“This future must indeed transcend platforms, and break text free of 2020’s proprietary binds and binaries: the boxes that seek to confine text to different ecosystems, that couch visible text into endless, unreadable metadata, that make text unreadable outside of predefined tools. In 2020, text frustrates and eludes us: uneditable PDFs; unwatchable Flash poetry; difficult to export social media data; abruptly canceled Twitter bots, existing only in archives or not at all.“

The primary source where I’m posting this is on my website via WordPress, so that I fully own and control the text. However, you might be reading this on LinkedIn or Substack or some other platform. They can be great, but the odds of being able to find this post in 10 years on either of those is not good like the LinkedIn post from my friend Chris that I could’t find less than 18 months after she first shared it.

The book shares more about what that really means:

“Passive deaths of texts on similar platforms take their texts with them: from the 2017 closure of locative discussion site Yik Yak, to the 2015 death of Facebook-esque Friendster, to the many smaller communities whose deaths go unremarked, text is continually fading out of reach. The texts that should be easily saved and ported from such deceased portals are frequently completely forgotten, rendered obsolete or inaccessible by combinations of proprietary formats, abandoned databases, and archaic tools for user archiving and export.“

As I mentioned above, this is a huge reason why I use WordPress; the content is easy to consume, back up, move, or do whatever I want with it.

This is also why I’ve ultimately settled on Obsidian for my notes. Other tools may have more features, but your text gets locked into their proprietary format with no good way out. What happens to your content in 10 years when that tool no longer exists? With Obsidian, my notes are just plain text files that I can move anywhere that I want.

A good example of this is my friend Joe on Facebook. He posts fantastic content, but (as far as I know) it’s only on Facebook. In some years, that content will be gone forever and it feels like this could be a great bit of history that would be valuable to him:

Granted, a lot of our content probably should be gone forever. Much of social media is just little quips about sports teams and other small things that don’t really matter, but a lot of it is worth more. It’s sad to know that the vast majority will get lost to the ages.

The loss of text is similar to losing data without a backup — you only really notice when disaster strikes. Unfortunately, the loss of text is happening on a relatively slow scale, so most are failing to notice it. I encourage you to notice it now and make the small shifts necessary to help your content live on.

Filed Under: Content, Encouragement

Confidence when it matters

April 30, 2025 by mickmel Leave a Comment

Reading Time: 2 minutes

I shared a few weeks ago about a friend that wasn’t very confident when speaking in public, despite having solid content to share. This recently happened again with a different friend, but the conversation afterward was very interesting.

This friend spoke at a small event and he did a fantastic job, but he took probably 15 shots at himself along the way:

  • “I’m not an expert at this”
  • “I know I’m talking too much”
  • “I’m just not very good at this”

While his talk was great, it would have been even better without all of the self-deprecating statements throughout.

That’s just who I am

In chatting with him and some other speakers after, he said “yeah, but that’s just how I am”. One of the others stopped him and said something that I thought was brilliant, saying:

“That’s how I am too. You know me, I take a lot of shots at myself and it’s all in fun. However, when I’m up there talking in front of a group I shift and I try to bring all of the confidence that I can.”

He was right! He’s kind of a goofball behind the scenes, but when he’s up on stage he brings authority and presence and it’s quite awesome.

It kind of goes back to Seth Godin’s thoughts on authenticity. No one wants to be you to be inauthentic, but you don’t need to lead with it either. As Seth has said:

“I think this pitch that you should be authentic is baloney. No one wants you to be authentic. Just name anything you care about. If you go to a concert or if you get or need surgery, you don’t want the surgeon to be authentic. If they’re having a bad day, you don’t want them to do a bad job. You want them to be consistent.”

Don’t hide who you are, but if you’re tasked with leading and inspiring others you should focus on those areas and leave the doubt for another time.

Filed Under: Encouragement

Jesus was never busy

April 29, 2025 by mickmel 2 Comments

Reading Time: 2 minutes

There are some people in my life that simply amaze me; they have a very full and rich life, but are able to take their time and enjoy it.

For example, one guy I know has an amazing family with a few young children, he holds a political position and also owns a quickly growing company. However, he always seems to have time to chat and is always fully engaged in whatever he’s doing at the moment.

Of course, I’ve seen plenty of the opposite where people are always hurrying from one thing to the next, and they never seem to be able to focus on the task at hand because they’re distracted by notifications and upcoming meetings. I think we’ve all been there, as I know that I certainly have.

A recent episode of the “How to Take Over the World” podcast focused on the life of Jesus, largely from a historical perspective. There were a lot of great insights in the episode, and I encourage you to give it a listen, but one concept really stood out to me: Jesus was never busy.

The host Ben Wilson shared a bit from Paul Johnson’s book “Jesus: A Biography from a Believer” where Johnson shared:

“Jesus was not thus overburdened by a program of specific appointments to teach. While always at work, he gives the impression of finding time to chat, albeit not about trivialities. There is never a sense of hurry.”

This shows up over and over again in scripture. Like other people in my life, Jesus got a lot of things done. He wasn’t “busy”, but he certainly wasn’t lazy. Finding that magic middle ground is an amazing place to be.

I think a big key to this is having a “mind like water“, where we’re able to respond appropriately to things as they come up throughout the day. If your inbox is clear and you know your priorities, it makes it easier to stay in the moment. It’s kind of like how I used Uber for many of my meetings back when we were in the office, because it allowed me to stay on top of things and prioritize effectively.

The other key is simply being in the right stage of life. I have some friends that are super organized and on top of things, and simply have chaotic lives right now with multiple children wrapping up their school year. At times, a bit of organized chaos simply can’t be avoided.

All of that said, it’s a great lesson to take from Jesus — you can accomplish a lot without having to be “busy” all the time.

I encourage you to check out Ben’s full episode for more.

Filed Under: Encouragement, Productivity

I’m not good at this

April 18, 2025 by mickmel Leave a Comment

Reading Time: < 1 minute

When giving a talk, many of us can be nervous and we’ll often feel a bit of imposter syndrome. While sharing weaknesses during a talk can be valuable, confidence in what you’re sharing is also important.

A friend of mine recently gave a talk to a small group, and he did an excellent job, but he spent way too much time apologizing for being there.

“I’m not sure what I have to share is valuable”.

“I hope I’m not wasting your time”.

“I really don’t do this very much, so this might be bad”.

While his talk was solid, it would have been far better if he had just left out the self-deprecating comments. All of those statements from him were honest, but they detracted from the content he was trying to share.

Honesty is paramount, but confidence goes a long way as well. Finding the right balance can lead to a very effective presentation.

Filed Under: Encouragement

If you’re the same person you were ninety days ago, you’re falling behind

April 17, 2025 by mickmel Leave a Comment

Reading Time: < 1 minute

They say that in business you’re either growing or you’re dying. It’s nearly impossible for a business to just sit at the same level year after year. If you try to do that you’ll slowly fade away, so the only other option is to grow.

The same can be said of individuals. Are you growing or are you fading?

In his book “What do do next“, author Jeff Henderson shares this quote from David Farmer, who leads the restaurant experience team for Chick-fil-A:

“If you’re the same person you were ninety days ago, you’re falling behind.”

The idea of “falling behind” is perhaps a bit harsh, as it can lead to the idea of “hustle at all costs” (which is also problematic) but the general idea is solid. Are you working to improve yourself? You don’t need to make huge leaps every 90 days, but are you doing little things to continually get better?

This could fall into categories like parenting, business, fitness, or many others. Nothing huge will change in 90 days, but little improvements every quarter can lead to some great improvements over time.

As much as we might want to, we can’t stay the same. We’re either growing or fading, so a little push to keep moving forward is always welcome.

Filed Under: Encouragement

Cold outreach is a form of the tragedy of the commons

April 10, 2025 by greenmellen Leave a Comment

Reading Time: < 1 minute

The tragedy of the commons is the concept that if many people enjoy unfettered access to a finite, valuable resource, they will tend to overuse it and may end up destroying its value altogether. This is generally applied to things like farmland, but I think it can apply to the internet as well, with the “finite, valuable resource” being our attention.

If everyone behaves properly, the resource stays useful for all. If a few people misbehave to take “just a bit more” for themselves, it can encourage everyone to try to take a bit more and destroys the value for everyone.

This is cold outreach in a nutshell. We have an amazing tool with the internet, but as more people try to do shady things to steal a bit of attention, it encourages others to do the same to try to keep up. As I’ve shared from Seth Godin a few times:

“People are smart enough to see that once spam becomes professionally and socially acceptable, all open systems fall apart.“

Techniques like cold calls and spam are tempting, for sure. The cost is essentially zero, and you can potentially make 10 more sales if you just bug 24,990 other people in the meantime.

The internet is unbelievably massive, but the attention of humans is a scare resource and should be respected by everyone or we risk ruining the entire system.

Filed Under: Encouragement, Technology

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