I haven't mentioned this to you yet: One of my projects is advising a hair salon.
Each week the salon owner, another advisor, and I jump on a call. In my role I might model capacity vs. customer load, test lead-gen experiments, or drive a POS system swap.
How does this project fit into my overall strategy? P&L reps.
I get to read the numbers every month, chase revenue-boosting ideas, and drive down costs. After twenty years mostly living on the expense side of the house, it’s refreshing to drive the top line, too.
Hands-on small business exposure is my front seat for an MBA-like case study, and will pay dividends as I keep building (and eventually buying) companies.
If you want true owner empathy, grab a seat inside someone else’s P&L for a season. There's so much you learn from being in the arena versus reading about it in books.
Are you working on any professional development projects? Share it with me at heykev@kevinnoble.xyz.
Kevin
A Quote
“
When a half-hearted job doesn’t bother you, it speaks volumes about the kind of person you are. And until you start feeling a sense of pride and self-respect in the work you do, no matter how small or overlooked those jobs might be, you will continue to sell yourself short.
— David Goggins in "Never Finished"
Three Things
1 - 🤖 Raycast Integration with Ollama Ollama is great for privacy because you can run an LLM locally, without transmitting anything over the internet. The user experience, however, is not great, because you have to load up a terminal window and talk there. Raycast just integrated Ollama into its service, which I already use. Now, I can chat with my local LLMs just by hitting CMD + SPACE and asking a question. I can also open up a full local chat window, just like with ChatGPT. Privacy and ease for the win!
2 - 🥘 Demeyere Atlantis Stainless Steel Pot My wife left for a birth after 11PM recently. The kids were already asleep, and I was still up. So, naturally, I stayed up until after midnight researching new pots to replace my leaky little sauce pan. Maybe not a smart use of my time, but I feel very confident adding this expensive little guy to my wish list. Lifetime warranty. Welded handles means there are no rivets to loosen over time.
3 - ⚡ John C. Reilly in Jack White’s New Music Video There must be a whole genre of music videos staring famous actors (do you remember my link to the Beastie Boys video a while back?!). The latest one has John C. Reilly as the electric Archbishop Harold Holmes.
(please enjoy this 8️⃣ minute read)
Deep Dive on Leading an Interesting Life
One of the reasons I’m writing to you from my home office as someone working on starting multiple businesses in his mid-forties - after spending the entirety of my adult professional life as a W-2 employee - is as an endeavor to live an interesting life.
This idea of living an interesting life is assuredly NOT one I’ve had all my life. And there is no one inciting event, or book, or person that caused it to happen, but rather a combination of things.
Trying to look retroactively and create a narrative:
▪︎Part of it was reading Marcus Aurelius’ “Meditations” and getting really interested in Memento Mori (which I wrote about in the beginning of this newsletter). I remember that I’m going to die and let that guide my actions today.
▪︎Part of it was learning about what people regret on their deathbeds (including loss of relationships, working too hard, and not being true to themselves).
▪︎Part of it was seeing my very brave wife pivot her own career into something that better resonated with her soul. Congrats, babe!
▪︎And I’m sure part of it was just getting older myself, and the natural introspection that comes with it 😁
Whatever the causes, it’s become something that I think about and use to drive my decisions.
Is what I’m doing interesting? If not, what experiences would be interesting?
I don’t want to live a life that’s smaller than it needs to be. I want to make sure I’m spending my short time on this planet pursuing adventure and an interesting path.
You should know that I’m not writing to you as someone who has it all figured out!
I’m only a few years into this being an aspiration, but I can share with you a few of the ways I’ve applied it professionally, and how I’ve benefited from it.
“So you need to make yourself a big target for luck, and the way to do that is to be curious. Try lots of things, meet lots of people, read lots of books, ask lots of questions.” - Paul Graham in “How to do Great Work”
Leaving Constraining Environments
Decades ago there was a young, entrepreneurial, Kevin. This little Kevin started his own lawn mowing, leaf raking, and snow shoveling business. I got flyers made at Kinko's and walked around neighborhoods stuffing them in mailboxes.
In 7th grade I had a newspaper route. I had to roll up newspapers by the stack and either put a rubber band or plastic sleeve around them. My hands would be black from printer ink! Then I’d stuff them in a bag, sling it over my shoulder, and go ride around the neighborhood to distribute them.
It was hard work, but who had two thumbs and money for the ice cream truck when it came around? This guy.
I distinctly remember
Somewhere along the way conformity, insecurity, and inertia slipped in. I continued working since then, from being an intern in Washington DC, working at a hardware store in high school, then the bookstore in college, before finally moving into my engineering career and adult professional life. But I was always working for someone else, not for me.
Every time I’ve moved on from an employer in my adult life, "constraint" was part of the reason. I’d feel hemmed in. I’d reach some sort of plateau and want to push through - only to find there was no path for me. So I would move to where I had more breathing room.
At the end of my time at Atlassian earlier this year, I felt a lot of constraint. There were things I wanted to do, or ways I wanted to lead, that were not going to be possible there.
When I thought of where to go next, everything was theoretically possible. I’ve changed industries and roles several times in my career, and I considered doing that again.
In the end I decided that instead of getting another job, I needed to get in touch with little Kevin who was brave enough to knock on doors asking strangers to pay me to shovel their walkway.
I needed to get somewhere where I was my biggest constraint, not the environment I was in.
Going on my own was going to be the most interesting thing I could do.
A Mantra
In an early planning session, I was mapping out a big landscape of all the things I could do. Sort of a mind map brainstorming ideas. I would start networking. I’d be more active on LinkedIn. Maybe I’d create some courses. Maybe I’d coach people. I’d serve on boards.
But the thing that sat above ALL of it was the idea that I should pursue an interesting life. When I eventually migrated the messy whiteboard into my Obsidian notes, I even put this note at the top (kind of funny to look back on that note now).
I wanted to remind myself that even though I work remotely, life is not lived in a computer. I need to be outside. I needed to try hard things and collect stories.
I needed to expose myself to novel experiences and see what happened.
Networking
I was going to say something like, “the last time I did networking [so and so] was President,” but the truth is, I’ve never done any focused networking in my entire life.
Getting started with networking was going to be a novel experience!
I’m generally a shy and introverted person, which is why I hadn’t really done any networking. But I wasn’t going to let that label prevent me from doing the thing I needed to do! Not only was networking going to be interesting, but in theory it would also reinforce my other goals.
Beginning networking for the first time my question was where to start?!
The first thing I did was join a few communities. For me personally, I felt like I needed an excuse to reach out to someone new. If we were both members of a community, that felt like a sufficient “in” to be comfortable sending a message.
So, join I did! And then I sent messages 😬 And then I got on calls 😬😬, or met for coffee 😬😬😬 🤣
It was a little awkward at first because I was awkward at first, but it was fun. The community connection reduced the introduction stress, then meeting people 1-1 reduced the large group stress.
And my focus was on being interested, then being interesting myself. I would focus on the other person and ask a lot of questions. What are you doing? For how long? Why did you choose that? What’s challenging about that? What are your goals?
If asked, I would share the things I was doing as well. I’d be honest and vulnerable. “Here’s what I’m trying.” “I have no idea what I’m doing with this.” “This seemed to work really well, and I’m really excited about this other thing.”
There was a ton to learn, and it was super interesting! I met SO MANY people who were doing cool things, and they all inspired me. One of the biggest benefits was just seeing that all these people were just people. They were doing amazing things, and they were human. They struggled. They made mistakes. But they were figuring it out.
As I started doing work for myself, my goal was to let it be weird. Nearly every person gave me the advice to “niche down” and “focus.” Pick something so narrow that you can own it and people will remember you.
Not bad advice I suspect, but it wasn’t for me. I wanted to “focus” on exploration and exposure to interesting things.
My goal? To put myself out there and say yes to everything remotely interesting.
As I was networking with people I would listen for opportunities to offer my help. I was focused on being of service to others, no matter what problem they were having or what industry.
“Oh, you’re having Hubspot issues? I’ve never done anything with Hubspot, but yes, I’ll figure it out.”
“You’d like me to model your operations through expansion and connect that back to your P&L to inform your fundraising? I’m really handy with Excel, so yes, I’ll figure that out.”
Accounting? Hair salon? Furniture manufacturing? Yes, yes, and yes. Industry didn’t matter because problems are problems, and I felt comfortable solving problems.
Is this strategy a slower path to large financial outcomes? Possibly.
I only have this life, so I don’t know what the counterfactual experience would be. All I can say is that I’m very satisfied with how this journey is treating me to date.
And I think it’s more fun 🙂
More Experiments
I didn’t say “yes” only to those client projects. I’ve said yes to lots of other interesting things that I’ve never done before.
Write a newsletter? Yes.
Start a podcast? Yes.
Be on other people’s podcasts? Also yes.
Start a monthly ruck? Yes.
Organize a conference? Yes.
Emcee panel discussions? Yes.
What have I learned? 1 - Trust your curiosity. 2 - Energy isn’t finite.
I’ve had more fun in the last three months than in the last three years.
I’ve put myself in situations and been in rooms having discussions that I wouldn’t have imagined two years ago. All because of an intention to lead an interesting life and seeing what happened.
What happens if you say yes too much?
I’ll let you know!
My energy may not be finite, but time certainly is. The more I say yes, the more busy I become.
And while I’m focused on living an interesting life, it must also be a balanced life. I’m not going to hop a plane to Fiji and leave my family alone just because it would give me an interesting story. I won’t sacrifice my relationship with my family or my physical health just to have some cool work experiences.
Fiji would be cool though!
No, this is more about localized yeses.
The way I see it, I’ll say yes until I run out of time. Once full, then any new idea has to compete against existing ideas. If it’s not better, I won’t have any problem saying no. If it is, then I’ll swap one for the other.
I even find this uncertainty to be interesting 😄 How will I solve it? I don’t know, but just like Hubspot, I bet I’ll figure it out.
Call to Action
Leading an interesting life is not a competition. It's not about being the most interesting person.
It's a potential north star. It's an aspiration. It's a way to take whatever direction you're on, introspect, and adjust.
I hope you find a way to involve a little more play, a little more adventure, and a little more high-upside uncertainty into your life by pushing it in a more interesting direction.
Be a divining rod for what’s interesting to you. Pick up an interesting book. Watch an interesting show. Go to an interesting restaurant. Eat an interesting fruit.
If you want to up the ante, choose an interesting project at work. Or an interesting side project outside of work.
And if you’re really feeling froggy, make some plans to find a career that better serves you 🐸😁
