Things I think about at least once a week
👋
So, I’ve got these four things on my mind a lot recently (like, a lot) and, well, I wanted to share them with you.
Think of this as a “Text Playlist,” an idea I lifted from Austin Kleon back in 2010(?) and never came back to. A little link round-up, a little curation. If you dig it, let me know. And if you don’t dig it, well, let me know that too.
Anyways. Here’s what’s on my mind:
This cartoon from Hugh MacLoed
Everything — truly everything — is marketing. Everything your business does (be it a small, large, or mighty business) is part of your brand and marketing. So think about it that way. After all, you are the sum total of your actions and habits. Are the actions of your business aligning with your positioning, messaging, and intention? Are your actions aligning with your marketing intention?
The law of raspberry jam
The wider you spread it, the thinner it is. — Gerald Weinberg
Life has a funny way of teaching you the lesson you need to learn again, again, and again until it sinks in. In my business and personal life, I’ve spent a few decades now running into the law of raspberry jam. (“What if I just spread it a little more so?”). After checks calendar thirty nine years, I decided to embrace the law of raspberry jam as a law of the universe.
You can’t escape it. The wider you spread yourself, the thinner you are.
Especially as a solo business owner. Pursuing another shiny idea? Have six(teen) projects open at once? You’re spreading yourself too thin. Instead, try piling that jam (focus, time, attention, effort, money, etc.) thicker and deeper and focus on one or two key things.
Billy Burg’s Comic ‘Success Story’
(BlueSky Skeet with this comic. Are you on BlueSky? Go like/reskeet that post, if you’d be so kind. )
I came across Billy Burg’s Success Story during my descent into Discordianism (Quoting Wikipedia: “a belief system based around Eris, the Greek goddess of strife and discord, and variously defined as a religion, new religious movement, virtual religion, or act of social commentary; though prior to 2005, some sources categorized it as a parody religion. It was founded after the 1963 publication of its holy book, Principia Discordia.”). Good holy book, strong recommendation.
Success Story is, to me, a thought provoking comic. After all, what is success to you? Is it pushing harder at business to move the wheel faster? To make more money? To build a bigger (and even bigger) job/career/business/empire?
Or is it finding that balance between work and what you do?
The older I get, the more I want to focus my time, intent, energy, and attention on high-value problems where my unique combination of skills and experience can make an outsized impact.
And then in the rest of my time I want to go off and play piano, putter in my garden, organize events with friends, or sit in a hammock somewhere near a river under the trees with my dog and a good book and just… rest.
What does success mean to you? And that story you’ve been telling yourself about what “success” is, does it come from you and your intentional decisions? Or is it something you were handed and have been carrying for oh-so long?
B.E. A.G.G.R.E.S.S.I.V.E. by My Year of Everything
(the full post is worth a read but that image-quote is, imo, the most impactful part)
I first read BE AGGRESSIVE back in, i dunno? 2010. The timestamp says posted 15 years ago so it has been quite a bit.
This is a piece of thought technology that I come back to again, again, and again.
If you’re feeling blocked in your business, what haven’t you done? Where aren’t you being aggressive enough? Go do it and embarrass yourself.
And honestly? The mental reframing to, “You know what, after this year, I’m out of here, so what can I try without shame or worry?” really really helps in both business and personal spheres.
“You’ll be doing something else in a year, maybe living somewhere else, so who cares what people think? Push until you feel uncomfortable and then double it.”
Powerful.
Take risks, makes mistakes, embarrass yourself. Remember: other people are rarely paying attention. So why not push until you feel uncomfortable?
How about you? What piece(s) of content do you keep coming back to? What do you keep linking to? What’s on repeat in your metaphorical text playlist. You can, as always, send me an email (kai@kaidavis.com), say hey on BlueSky (https://bsky.app/profile/kaidav.is), or get in touch through the other ways.
Hope you’re well.
Excelsior!
Kai