Shoot your shot
Or why making friends online is no longer weird
👋Happy Sunday, my friends. I hope you're getting a little bit of time to rest, relax and rejuvenate this weekend. Today's newsletter is a quick one, but I have few things that I really want to share, including:
The latest episode of the Intentional Wisdom podcast
A quick reminder on shooting your shot
Some awesome content I've been consuming recently
Let's do this!
Ep.9 - Michael Girdley - The Simple Systems Powering a Leading Entrepreneur
If you don't know Michael Girdley, let me help you with that. I first came across him when he outbid me in an NFT auction and have since come to be a massive fan. He is a well-known (>95k followers) personality on Twitter, where he shares lessons on business and life, alongside bad Chili's jokes... you kind of have to follow him to get that.
Anyhow, he's an incredibly successful entrepreneur who oversees 9 different companies—everything from software to coffee to venture capital. If you run a business, the content Girdley, as he tends to be known, regularly shares on the likes of recruiting, strategy and culture is absolute gold. I really believe this. He and I talked a bit about this but the focus of our conversation was more about his own personal routines.
I'm becoming extremely fascinated with the routines of high-performers - their nutrition plans, their fitness programs - really any daily system that they are using to operate their lives. I'm planning to start really focusing in on this with my podcast guests. My thought is that if I can learn a little bit from each one, I can hopefully help you (and me) improve in all of these areas. Anyhow, check out this episode. It's already my most-listened to episode ever - in part due to this quasi viral Twitter thread from this past week.
Shooting your shot.
I feel like I've had a few things go my way recently. And I want to acknowledge this — not to brag, but rather to practice what I preach: To show and feel appreciation. We all get stuck in the mold of focusing to a fault on what's NOT going right. Think for a minute about what’s going wrong recently in your own life…. a ton, right? So easy to think of. How about what’s going right? Maybe a little tougher? Remember the graphic below on Hedonic Adaptation? Basically, we're all wired to revert to a mean level of happiness.
This is helpful when really bad things happen to us. But it’s less helpful when good things happen. We easily let them go and don’t really take the time to appreciate them or let them sink in. That kind of stinks. So here are three good things I want to highlight, make note of… just acknowledge - so that maybe I can extend that happiness line a bit higher for a bit longer.
Thing 1: As mentioned above, I landed an interview with Michael Girdley. How? I shot my shot. Here's the interaction on Twitter.
Thing 2: I had a completely separate thread go viral on Twitter this week (see below) and between this and the Girdley one, I almost doubled my Twitter followers in a week. This one was basically a distillation of my book, Say Good Morning, Like a Human, which is a career guide for young professionals. Incidentally, if you have any new college grads in your life, it makes a heck of a graduation gift… just $14.99 for the paperback on Amazon right now… Okay, enough shameless shilling.
Thing 3: My Little League team, The Bulls, finished in first place in the regular season and is currently battling it out in playoffs.
Three good things! What do they have in common? In each case, I was in the game and shot my shot.
For the Girdley interview, he could have easily ignored my tweet or simply said no. That would have been fine and expected. But he didn't. Maybe he saw that I had interviewed Kat Cole, another one where I shot my shot... or maybe not. It doesn't matter. It worked. And everyone that works gives me more confidence that the next one could work, too. So I get bolder. I think bigger. And I fail and fail and fail and then... whoa, succeed. In bigger and bigger ways. Just shooting those shots.
For the viral career thread, I had written that content two years ago for my book and simply decided last week to repackage it for Twitter. It took off. Why? Maybe because it's good, or maybe not. But I’m certain that a big factor behind it was that I've been keeping myself in the "Twitter game.” As soon as I published the thread, I messaged my friends on Twitter about it and they all shared it to their (in some cases) very large Twitter networks. Why do I have "friends" on Twitter? Because I've been investing time into building relationships there. Amplifying the work of others. Thoughtfully commenting on posts that interest me. Basically trying to give more than I take. Yes, that’s right, I've actually been making friends on Twitter. If that sounds weird to you, I'm not surprised. But I'd also guess that you are over 30. Listen to my conversation with Girdley. We discuss exactly this. The stigma of "online friends" exists only in older generations today and it's going to evaporate quickly. Every podcast guest I've had so far I've met on Twitter. My next job or business opportunity will almost certainly come from Twitter. If that's weird, I'm okay with weird. Twitter is a game I want to be in.
For the baseball, I never wanted to coach. I said no and no and no. Couldn't someone else do it? Didn’t they know how busy I am? I’m a dad, husband, executive, podcast host, newsletter writer etc., etc., etc. Nobody cares. They needed a coach. So I got in the game. That was a couple of years ago. Now, I'm addicted. It's so competitive and strategic and fun. And I realized that my oldest is only going to be 10 years old for about five more minutes. Then he'll be 30. So I'm in the game. And I take it seriously. And so do my assistant coaches. We plan every detail about the line-up, the positions and the practices. In fact, we practiced more than any other team in the league this year. I'm 100% sure this was a major factor in our first place finish.
So what are the takeaways here? I don’t know. But here are a few guesses:
Get in (and stay in) the game.
Shoot your shot. Why not? We’re all going to be footnotes soon… if that… so seriously, why not?
And.... make friends online? Okay how about this: Build meaningful, non-transactional relationships and watch what ultimately boomerangs back to you.
That sounds right. That’s what I’m trying to do, anyhow. Maybe it’ll help you, too.
That's it for this week. But before you go...
Content Diet
Morgan Housel with Tim Ferriss - If you're worried about what's happening right now in financial markets, you might appreciate this conversation. Morgan wrote The Psychology of Money, which I profiled here. He and Tim have what is an incredibly thoughtful and nuanced conversation on everything from personal finance to career development. Really appreciate both of these guys.
Brad Stulberg with Rich Roll - This is a deep and profound conversation on mental health and well-being. Stulberg is a well-known author in the "self-help" space and in this (at times vulnerable and incredibly honest) conversation, he eloquently explains his philosophy of "sustainability" over "hustle culture." This idea forms the foundation (no pun intended) of his new book, The Practice of Groundedness. I enjoyed this one.
And that’s it!
Thanks for reading, my friends. I hope I added just a little bit of value to your life today.
See you in two weeks!
Greg