During the holidays, my partner gifted me this sweet notebook that makes me think “Workers of the the world, unite!”
Right? This repurposed book cover would have suited something from the WPA, Marx or Trotsky. Or maybe Che Guevara – check out the mustache on the dude second row center. I love this thing. My present has inspired this present to you: inspirations from my notebook. They’re like sticky notes, but with way less staging effort on my part.
We’ve also been watching Adventure Time, which is fantastic in a really weird way. Try watching it. It’s dark, but almost always ridiculously optimistic.
So, this is a quote from an episode that inspired me so much I had to attempt drawing an animated character. Hey, sucking at something is the first step to being really good at it, right?
It’s an important lesson.
How often do we reject a new way of working, or a new idea because trying it on will make us look stupid and awkward? I see this pattern more than I’d like – enough that I think it’s worth setting the expectation right away that we’re going to suck for a little bit, and that it’s the first step towards real goodness.
And, honestly, when you have permission to fail, sucking at something feels amazing. It’s like learning how to walk. You get to really see how you tick (whether that’s you personally or your team) when you get started on something you can’t do well yet.