← all posts
Make things better by making better things.
Legendary comedian Paula Poundstone has a bit where she talks about how, early in her career, she would complain that no one ever showed up to her shows. Of course, she was saying this to the audience that had actually shown up.
Gabe Anderson, the bass player, writes that you only get to release your music—you don’t get to control how your audience listens to it.
The same is true here. I can’t tell you how to consume this blog. You might read it in the bathroom, on a walk, in a quiet library with no distractions, or not at all.
The work is the work. That’s all we really get.
That isn’t to say outcomes don’t matter. They do. But they’re not what we control.
What we can control is the process:
Everything else is just noise.
And so much of our culture—especially in behavioral economics and psychology—is focused on gaming people into certain behaviors: to spend more, scroll more, watch more, consume more.
The alternative is to simply leave the door open.
Make the space feel inviting. Ask for permission if people want to be part of the journey.
As Seth Godin has pointed out, permission marketing and long-term relationships are built on communication that is anticipated, personal, and relevant. That is vastly different from spamming people.
The world doesn’t need another used car salesman. And just because you wrote a joke doesn’t mean it’s funny to the rest of us.
We need more people who will contribute. You don’t earn trust and attention without continually showing up to feed the community. But if you do it long enough, with enough care, eventually the community will feed you back.
Drip by drip, the ocean is filled.