34 reflections after 34 years

34 thoughts on life, work, and even marketing

I was standing in front of the bathroom mirror, brushing my teeth while staring blankly back at the face in front of me. When my eyes came back into focus, I realized I was staring at the single gray hair in my beard.

Damn, another year has passed and I can actually see I’ve gotten older this time.

I know you’re used to thoughts on B2B and marketing, but I’m changing it up this week and writing this in true “meditations” style. 34 notes, thoughts, and reflections to myself on things learned, things remembered, and things I need to be better about as I enter this 34th year of my life.

In no particular order…

1. Find your stress outlet + don't compromise on it

   Any time that I find myself burning out or carrying stress more than normal, it’s often because I’ve neglected my stress outlets. Whether it be the gym, running, quality time with family + friends, video games, etc., always prioritize this outlet as part of your routine

2. Motivations change, and that’s ok

   Some periods in life, making + saving up money is more important. Other periods in life, being able to wrap the work day early to spend time with family + friends is more important. Follow your intuition and lean into this.

3. Rules > decisions

   Stealing this from Clear Thinking, by Shane Parrish, as I encounter this frequently when people ask why I’m not drinking alcohol on certain occasions:
   “People don't argue with your personal rules. They just accept them as features of who you are. People question decisions, but they respect rules.”

4. The older you get, the fewer people you have telling you what you should do + the more you need to listen to your inner voice that tells you what you know you should do

   The default decisions we make aren't in our best interests as often as we'd like to think they are. The decisions we make every day form the habits we'll keep. When making a decision, imagine it's a friend/family member asking you what they should do. Don't be surprised when the advice you give to "them" is much different than what you let yourself get away with.

5. Who cares what you look like if it puts a smile on the face of those you love

   My palms start sweating at the thought of singing in public. But you know what, if singing or dancing is what puts a huge smile on our little one’s face, put me on a stage in front of thousands of people and I’ll do it

6. Early morning weekend walks are a magical time

   There’s something peaceful about getting outside early in the morning before most of the world is up, as the sun is slowly coming out. This has become a ritual for me with our little one + pup as we stroll these mornings. Day starts much more peacefully in a good mental space + the volume of ideas/solutions I come back with is unbelievable.

7. Complaining is a huge energy drain

   Be careful of how much you complain + allow others to complain around you. There are few things more mentally draining than surrounding yourself with these thoughts + mindset.

8. Evaluate your daily energy peaks + valleys to structure the day

   I do my best thinking in the morning, so I block the first handful of hours for this type of work. In the afternoon, my focus wanes, but I get energized by engaging with others, so this is when I do most meetings, collaborations, and podcasts.

9. Need a quick stress reliever? Double inhale breathing

   Taking two inhales and one long exhale reduces CO2 levels, slows your heart rate, and leaves you feeling calmer, less tense, and more focused.

10. Invest in a good pair of headphones

    Blocks out external noise while in deep work mode. But also, it made me appreciate music so much more when I could hear the clarity + detail that artists put into their work that doesn’t come through in low-quality headphones.

11. There's a big difference on social media between arguing + discourse

    Avoid the first at all costs, seek out the second

12. Get your feet in the grass daily

    It may sound woo-woo, but there’s something to it that recenters you

13. Put exercise on your calendar + treat it like any other business meeting

    I found myself skipping the gym more than I have in previous years as I’d let work carry late and sacrifice exercise time to support it. So back to #3 above, I made exercise a “rule” and I schedule it on my calendar.

14. Have a few gym/running playlists ready to go

    On that note, having the right playlist can make or break a workout. The workouts that I can never quite land on the right song/genre tend to be poorer than when I have the perfect playlist going, so I have a handful of different workout playlists I can go to control for this.

15. Go for a walk

    The times I’m most stressed at work or struggling to solve a problem are the times I most need to go for a walk/take a shower/etc. More answers come to me during those times than while staring at my laptop trying to force it.

16. Get comfortable with being bored

    Waiting in line at the grocery store? Sitting at a table waiting for a friend to join? Instead of pulling out your phone, be content to sit back, observe, and let your thoughts wander. Give your brain a break from the dopamine hits.

17. You never regret doing hard things afterward

    It’s usually the easy things we did in place of those that we end up regretting

18. The best ideas come from other places

    Whether it’s reading fiction, learning from other industries, etc., some of the best ideas + plans I’ve been a part of came from drawing parallels from those. Not everything has to be “brand new” - find those parallels and put your spin on it.

19. It’s ok to say no or not reply

    This one has taken me the longest to come to terms with as a chronic people pleaser. But I finally got to the point where I didn’t have the time to field every question or request that came my way. And you know what happened when I did? The world went on.

20. Slow down

    Being able to move fast is a superpower for startups. But it can become a curse if there aren’t good decision models baked into that speed. Map out all of the paths. Understand the opportunity costs of what’s not being done if we do this. Second- + third-order consequences. Taking a little bit longer to go through these are worth it.

21. The unsexy work is what gets the sexy results

    No one wants to hear that the fundamentals or “basics” are what drives the results, but it’s the truth. Embrace the unsexy work, strive for 1% improvements, and let those stack on top of each other over time.

22. Iterate > seeking perfection

    There are too many variables in life + work that we’ll ever be able to land on “perfect”. Instead of waiting until you have the perfect workout program, the perfect ad campaign, etc., get started with something that you’re proud of.

    Know that the aim will be to continuously iterate off of it to get it as close to perfect as possible as time goes on + variables arise.

23. The cost of inaction

    We’re creatures of comfort and habit. We think that what we do now “works well enough” and will continue to. But things change and rarely will what works now continue to work at the same exact rate moving forward. It typically begins to decline. Understand the cost of staying current path and be open to seeing what other paths exist.

24. We’re more creative when we have fewer resources

    I’ve worked with companies that had $1M+ in monthly marketing budget, and we produced some of the most generic, least-inspiring efforts in the space. I’ve worked with companies that had $5k in monthly marketing budget, and was blown away by the creativity + efficiency that that $5k drove.

25. You can walk back out of most doors you enter

    Most decisions don’t have to be final. We just hate to be “wrong”, so our ego has us push things through until we can convince ourselves we were right about something. If you make a decision that isn’t panning out how you wanted it to, going back to #20, understand what other paths are available and what you mapped out to handle this second-order consequence.

26. Learning through experience > theory

    The best way to learn is to do something yourself. Throw yourself into the deep end. Scrape your knees.

    We don’t always have that luxury or access. In those instances, find biographies, podcasts, videos, etc. of others who have done what you want to learn in those instances.

27. Swap “Can I pick your brain” with “Would you join me on my podcast?”

    Building off #26, most people we want to learn from don’t have a ton of free time and get “coffee requests” regularly. So instead of making an ask that only benefits you, this gives them more as they’ll have something they can share afterward (make sure you do the lift here in producing the audio + creating shareable clips). Plus, you have this conversation saved in perpetuity now instead of whatever you remembered to jot down in your notebook.

28. Define exit criteria for experiments

    I’ve seen “beta” features last for years. I’ve ran ad experiments for quarters. When something is inconclusive, we feel compelled to not accept that gray area, but to push until we can say if it was a success or failure. Define exit criteria before beginning and the appropriate timeline to avoid this.

29. Zoom out to avoid knee-jerk reactions

    Q3 was our best quarter ever. But it literally took until the final day of the quarter for that to happen. As much as we’d like for everything to be perfectly linear over time, it never is. If we overreacted to a slow July or a bad week during that quarter + shifted our strategy, we’d be in a worse place than had we stuck to the course. Know when to be confident in a strategy and when to revisit if it does need to change.

30. There’s no single path to success

    At one point in time, Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic, and Rafa Nadal would rotate between the world #1 in tennis. A reporter wanted to uncover what made for the best, and here’s what he found while watching them warm-up:

    Federer, laughing and taking trick shots

    Djokovic, robotic + precise, no wasted movements

    Nadal, intense focus and a raw, athletic energy

    The point the reporter was making is that many of us think that in order to be a champion, I must be X, but as you can see above, each of them was #1 and each had an entirely different path + skillset to achieve that

31. Talent attracts talent

    Want to bring top talent to your organization? Make sure that’s the bar you set with the team you already have. Top talent attracts top talent. A culture of mediocrity attracts mediocrity.

32. AI is a much more efficient way to get the first 80% of the work done

    For many of us, AI won’t replace our work. And the early adopters recognize this and is why they’ve embraced it. AI is great for getting first drafts written, outlines made, taking notes, organizing unstructured data, etc. So let it. Then do what you do best once those are in place. Add your personal touch. Insert your knowledge on top of the data to draw a conclusion. AI is a tool in your kit, not an enemy.

33. Work can wait, don't miss the important (and little) moments with family + friends

    Remember that super-important task you stayed up late working on the other week? What was it? Remember that message you just had to send out at dinner the other day? Could it have waited?
    The things we remember, and the things we regret, are almost always centered around family + friends.

34. I don’t know what I don’t know

    But I’m excited for another year ahead full of curiosity, learning, and improving

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One podcast episode I enjoyed this week

The podcast, Founders, has easily become my favorite this year. And mostly for the reasons I outlined above - I’m able to learn from some of the best and how they’ve approached problems that I’m currently working through (or likely will face in the future).

This episode is about Yves Chouinard, the founder of Patagonia, and countless lessons learned along the way. One that stuck with me proves that most of the problems we face have already been solved for. Patagonia had countless competitors, and most all of them were cheaper than them. But over years of running their business, watching growth continue while competitors came in and out of the market, Yves was able to gather data to prove that profits are directly correlated to the quality of work. Quality, not price, has the highest correlation with business success. Through the data they were able to see that their ROI was 12x higher than their low-cost competitors and that as times have evolved, the market views quality not as a luxury, but as something that’s sought out and expected by the customer.

So although there are always cheaper options, they end up being more expensive and lower ROI in the long run. The market has to replace them sooner, so having to purchase 2, 3, or 4 of the same product before you’d have to replace the higher quality, “more expensive” one ends up being, well, more expensive.

And for anyone interested, here’s the playlist I add to each week with some of my favorite podcast episodes:

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See you next Saturday,
Sam