It’s not the swimming Olympics, but I have enjoyed the show, especially as the second season has been releasing.
GQ just interviewed Jason Sudeikis, the creator and the star of Ted Lasso.
I loved the message he shared about how things can shift from being a big part of our life, a book, to a mere doodle in time.
He says, “I’ll have a better understanding of why in a year, and an even better one in two, and an even greater one in five, and it’ll go from being, you know, a book of my life to becoming a chapter to a paragraph to a line to a word to a doodle.”
Even thinking back two years ago – what was a book then and what is the impact today?
There is a lot of movement and change going on right now. But in a moment of reflection, I expect you, like me, to see the books of beautiful doodles that we have.
And perhaps we can take a lesson from Andy Bernard in The Office when he tells us, “I wish there was a way to know you were in the good old days before you actually left them.”
As parts of our life can go through a tectonic shift, words can lose size on the pages or books of our life. It doesn’t mean they have to lose meaning to our experience and who we are.
Isn’t it the growth that helps to make us great?
The greater the challenge, the greater the growth.
Let’s continue to chase our dreams and make it a great August.
I am always looking to up my game. Perhaps you are too.
I have two older brothers and one is extremely good at persuading people. Let me walk you through what just happened to me yesterday.
It’s Kentucky Derby time and my brother and I have the itch to buy an NFT horse from Zed Run.
I barely know anything about them but you can race them against other horses and place bets on them – all virtually. I’m sold at this point.
Here is one we aren’t buying: It’s 0-5 in competition. It doesn’t have the best name either.
We can cross this one off the list too:
Now, my brother knows all about the horses. When to buy, and better yet, apparently how to breed them too. He is the expert.
I offered to put some cash towards a horse with him, but he has been encouraging me to do my research to get educated on the whole “game and system.” I was reluctant (lazy) until he asked me two questions:
“Nate, how much research do you actually want to do?” My response: “Ah a little but not too much.”
He then hit me with:
“That’s more than nothing. Why do any?” My response: “I don’t want to buy a slow horse or pay way too much!!!”
After those two questions, he had ME positioning why I should do research. I was negotiating with myself. Ughhhhh!
He knew I better have some knowledge and some skin in the game before we bought the horse, and he flexed his persuading skills too.
Enjoy the Kentucky Derby today with a big hat on, and put this insight to use in your own way.
If you have not read, or at least browsed, Jeff Bezos’s last letter to shareholders, I implore you to take a look. It came out last Thursday.
It’s “The Last Lecture” in a business document. You can read it on Amazon’s website: here.
I wanted to highlight my favorite part to start the week.
It’s the section titled: Differentiation is Survival and the Universe Wants You to be Typical.
In it, Bezos asks us two questions:
1) “In what ways does the world pull at you in an attempt to make you normal?
2) How much work does it take to maintain your distinctiveness? To keep alive the thing or things that make you special?”
Our environment wants us to be normal, and for us to lose what makes us special. We can’t let our environment take that away from us.
Bezos adds,
“We all know that distinctiveness – originality – is valuable. We are all taught to “be yourself.” What I’m really asking you to do is to embrace and be realistic about how much energy it takes to maintain that distinctiveness. The world wants you to be typical – in a thousand ways, it pulls at you. Don’t let it happen.
You have to pay a price for your distinctiveness, and it’s worth it. The fairy tale version of “be yourself” is that all the pain stops as soon as you allow your distinctiveness to shine. That version is misleading. Being yourself is worth it, but don’t expect it to be easy or free. You’ll have to put energy into it continuously.”
Growing up, we all had people in some way tell us we were special, had a distinctive talent, or to do more stuff that uses our unique skills.
I am bringing attention to Bezos’s call to never let us forget those people, our skills and talents, and to allocate the needed time, energy, commitment, and discipline it takes to “be ourselves.”
One of my skills growing up was making incredible football catches. For a 12-year-old, I was nasty.
Not the same now, but you will find me somehow trading baseball cards with the person I just had an intense used-car-like negotiation with. It’s a skill I leverage now, and I get in spots to succeed.
What are the unique abilities that you will never let the environment take away from you?
I’m scrolling Instagram, and Rick Steele’s Charity Challenge catches my eye.
The rules?
Pick an athletic challenge that is nearly impossible to complete by the end of the year.
Complete the challenge, and $1,000 goes to a charity of my choice. If I fail at the challenge, then it’s $500.
I see that Rick has his own goal. It’s a sub-5-minute mile. Well, I did that in high school and thought, I have the cleats and track nearby, so why not make that my challenge too.
Rick accepts 24 other challengers and me. It’s game on, and a great opportunity to close out the year strong and get some money to my charity. The State College Food Bank was going to get the winnings.
I had connected with Rick from spending some time in California. He founded SelectBlinds and recently was a top finisher in the 2020 World Marathon Challenge, completing seven marathons on all seven continents in seven consecutive days.
It’s now November 25, 2020.
A secret donor comes in and offers $250,000 to their charity if 20/25 of the challenge groups hit their mark.
What??? $250K to charity too? That’s a total of $275K up for grabs. This challenge is at a whole new next level! Plus, being part of something bigger than myself always gets me excited.
Dopamine levels were high. Adrenaline was pumping. Both were needed, as the weather was getting colder in Philly, and the indoor tracks were restricting visitors due to Covid.
Thankfully, I was already in some good running shape, but I desperately needed to get used to running in racing spikes again. I had only done a Spring season of track once, and that was in high school.
It’s now December and time is running low.
After some seriously close attempts, some shin splints, and many failures, I hit my goal. What’s more? So did over 80% of the challenge team!
$275,000 to charity, including $1,000 to the State College Food Bank: YES
Closed out the year giving back: YES
Contributed to something bigger than myself: YES
Thank you, Rick and team, for the opportunity. I am smiling ear to ear now sharing this story and the incredible impact Rick orchestrated. Thank you to my friends and family who pushed me, and a HUGE congrats to the challenge team.
I am certainly taking the energy well into 2021.
Pulling from Simon Sinek: We play in an infinite game, and there is no win or lose. Just a long journey.
It’s not a typical Thanksgiving, but there is an opportunity to be thankful for even more this year, or at the very least, appreciative for the opportunity to give thanks.
For me, drinking cold brew concentrate with some of my family members this morning is a blessing that makes me stop and think of the joy that simple thing brings me.
It makes me illicit one of my favorite sayings ‘It doesn’t get much better than this.”
Thanksgiving is in part different this year because there was no Thanksgiving Eve night out at the local bars in your family’s town. If you haven’t experienced that special night yet, it’s truly a distinctive event.
Thanksgiving Eve is when we usually connect with old high school and family friends that comes with so many “It’s been so long, how are you?”
I’m confident next year’s event will be the best one yet, as it will be two years since we have seen some of our local stars.
So, in light of no Thanksgiving Eve, I challenge you all to reach out to people you haven’t chatted with in a while, especially those who have made a substantial impact on you.
Be mindful of the ones you feel you could make a positive impact on too.
Better yet, pull out the pen and paper, get a $.55 stamp, and craft some hand-written notes. If you don’t know their address, write a hand-written note and send it via text or email.
There is a 100% chance it will make an impact on the receiver.
It’s been true in my life.
Reaching out and expressing gratitude has changed my life forever.
It has opened doors for me in such unique ways.
So, enjoy Thanksgiving and be thankful, even if it’s just for the opportunity to be so.
I’m curious: in what ways do you express gratitude?
Our society is moving away from deep, meaningful relationships to more of transactional exchange.
It’s a scary sight.
What do the best athletic coaches, teachers, and companies have in common?
They elevate their customers as trusted advisors to exceed their goals, all in the name of Customer Success.
I’ll use my rapidly growing TikTok following to set the stage for the power of Customer Success.
I started a TikTok account near the beginning of COVID-19 with my roommate to capture our quarantine life and see what the TikTok sensation was all about. It was right after I got home from a spring break international cruise with my brother and a friend– yes, not too many ships left again after I docked.
As I am now back home, it’s fun to do videos with my parents and hop on current trends.
An impromptu video of my mom offering to do my chores for a week if the video went viral resonated with viewers. The video has over 12 million views and is still growing. The brand of Send It Legend grew stronger.
How did I leverage the video for future growth and interactions? I didn’t “stay in my niche.” I created different types of content that gave viewers with varying interests a chance to be introduced to me. I met my “customers” where they were.
We can take a similar approach when working with current customers and leveraging their successes to acquire new ones. I live and breathe the idea of Customer Success, which, in my view, is helping your customers to meet and crush their defined performance metrics. You have either been a consumer or producer of Customer Success before, but maybe not with the best intentions or execution.
When I coach a swim team or teach individual swim lessons, I want to know the kids’ goals.
Why?
I am there in part to consistently get the kids and their parents through the shadows of darkness and show them the light at the end of the tunnel.
Your customers have the same needs. Renew your vows with your customers often and with vigor.
Next, take responsibility for the relationship, build scar tissue, and remove barriers to servicing customers. It pays off.
My research shows it can cost about a dollar and 5 cents to get a dollar of new first-year revenue but only fifteen cents of Customer Success spending per dollar to get the renewal.
Customer Success Graph Year 1 vs. Year 2
What if we took a year, “turned the firehose on,” and spent forty-five cents per dollar?
When I would send a scorecard to executives in the company of what a single division shop manager was doing in their plant with the product, the executives would be clueless to the fact a plant manager saved the company $100,000, for the second time that month!
My team made sure the champion was known.
How much is a $5 scorecard worth if it gets your name on the top decision-makers’ table and has a tangible financial impact outlined?
Commitment to customers and their long-term success can set you apart from competitors. We need people who want to help their customers succeed. Simple, but the more you evaluate your business relationships, the more provocative it becomes.
A 5-year relationship with a customer offers opportunities to help them grow and innovate that often isn’t there on day 1. Like those friendships you have invested in, customer relationships are the same way. Pursuing only breath in customer relationships can deny us the value that creating depth brings.
Let’s be all-in, move the needle and swing the pendulum back to going deep with our customers.
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Did this resonate with you? Let me know. I will be sharing more Customer Success content soon.
Are you interested in being on the new Customer Success podcast and sharing your story? Drop me a line.
It is exciting to share that my thesis for the Schreyer Honors College has been submitted and accepted.
It was research on organizational culture and a study of the culture within two competing companies in the same industry. Thank you to everyone for your continued support.
It culminates a two-year journey that helped to make my Penn State experience special.
To save you from the 65-pages, there are three big takeaways that are applicable across disciplines that you all should know:
1) Emotional Safety and Trust.
There are a lot of problems and threats that individuals and companies face daily, and they are anywhere from small to large “hills” that need to be climbed.
The ability to conquer those “hills” without having to worry about people second-guessing your actions from the bottom of the hill, enhances performance.
2) Feedback and Motivation.
Be relentless in finding your “why” and helping others find theirs.
Working with driven teammates in an environment where feedback is shared and accepted in the pursuit of shared excellence, enhances performance.
3) The Power of Momentum.
Action creates momentum. Take action and be bold.
Celebrating what you want more of, personally and as a group, and leveraging past successes to guide future efforts, enhances performance.
I have seen the power of these through my time as a Division 1 swimmer and teammate, as an intern at growing and powerhouse companies, running an apparel company, and with mentors and peers who allow me to ask deep questions with a smile.
A proposition that can be pulled from this (putting my new-found qualitative research hat on) is asking the simple question of, “How am I working?” This is not in regard to employment, but rather in respect to whatever our daily grind revolves around.
My findings would suggest you answer that question with that you trust people to be great and that you support them in flexing their “can do” muscle.
It would recommend that you discover your passion and help others find theirs. That you take time to provide feedback to support others, accept input when needed, and that you remember people who have invested so much in you.
It would encourage you to be reliable, be bold, and take action to develop momentum. The research would say to celebrate your successes and not to shy away from building on current momentum from yourself and your teammates.
My Mom and I were on a walk just yesterday, and she asked me, “Nate, what is your next learning curve?” Well, perhaps it is to help companies to cultivate a culture across all stakeholders that focuses on Appreciation, Reinforcement, and Community (more on that later).
I challenge you to all ask the question of “How am I working?” We are in unique times, and I hope these takeaways can help in some way.
If you are interested in reading the entire thesis or chatting more, comment below or send me a message.
P.S. Thank you to all of the frontline workers, including my oldest brother Brad, who is a doctor in Baltimore. All of your courage and dedication is special. Thank you.
There is a lot of noise coming our way to do more as we social-distance. It is important now more than ever that we filter in the right information and guide our actions. Combining strategic thinking when applicable, with our increased efforts, can yield extraordinary results.
We hear the call to action to learn something new, practice yoga, clean the house, do things we don’t usually have time for, and there is great value in doing so. However, there is a lack in the call to action to take time to figure out how all of our efforts fit into our master plans.
We have to evaluate our master plans, or perhaps create one, and draw the outline in pencil of the puzzle before we start playing with the puzzle pieces. How do our actions align with our long-term pursuit of excellence and our unique daily discipline needed to achieve it?
We can plow through life, but if our actions are not aligned, we could be plowing snow back into the same spot it was just in. We need to gain and demonstrate expertise to grow influence but let’s make sure we are taking time to obtain the right knowledge and check-in that we are not only growing, but growing in the way we want and need to.
We can leverage the passive investor mindset of preparing ourselves for delayed gratification, staying the course, and the keystone notion that this too shall pass. But how about we combine the indelible outlook with an active investor mindset, closely monitoring our routines and individual actions to exploit every single chance to better ourselves.
Our society often rewards quantity over quality of actions and can confuse them to be the same. This carrot can encourage momentum, but we need to point the slingshot in the right direction.
Let’s
Be strategic in our master plans
Be tactical in the needed actions, and
Be an operator by making it happen.
If we forget to do step 1, I’d bet steps 2 and 3 do not get utilized to their full capacities.
Now would be a good time to turn on and turn up your favorite song. Take a pause, a few deep breaths, and hold onto the feeling of confidence.
If your composure has left you at all recently, that’s OK. It’s waiting for you to take it back. Let’s play our aces and leverage our support system.
How will we look back on these moments in 6 months? A year?
I’d say with a smile from ear-to-ear knowing we gave it all we had. Because amid endless uncertainty around us, we leaned into adversity rather than shying away. We met trials not as an unexpected visitor, but as a special guest at our social-distancing gathering. We showed courage by less of slaying the dragon, and more of making progress in the face of endless opportunities not to.
In closing, one of the best professors I had during my two years at La Salle University was Dr. Kennedy, and he would always sign off with noting, contact me anytime. Dr. Kennedy was a Penn State grad and helped me in my entrance into Schreyer’s when I transferred.
It’s beautiful how things end up like that, but that’s almost always how it works. Whatever we are looking for in life, we will find.
So, take time to be strategic, re-balance, and let’s live life in the present because if we can do it, it will last a lifetime.
Nate Woodman 