What're we doing here?

Well... what am I doing here?

Sometimes (when I’m in a work situation usually) the conversation needs to get back to the point of the work because our discussion and solutions have headed off the trail a little. We’ve lost sight of why we started in the first place. Why are we doing this at all?

This is when I might mutter, “What're we doing here?”

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

Sure… goals can be marked as “Done”. Yes, metrics can move in the direction you wanted them to. You successfully did the thing! 🥳 🎉
But, it turns out that you didn’t actually accomplish what you set out to do. 😿

Without ensuring that the goal and the metrics and the work align with why you’re doing it in the first place well… sad trombone sound. (Although in some companies you probably got your bonus anyway - but that’s a topic for a different email)

So I’m asking myself now - What're we doing here?

I’m writing a newsletter… why? What’s the point? What am I trying to accomplish with it?

The point 👇

Write.

Put the reps in. Get my million crappy words out. Figure out a routine of publishing.

That’s it.

Why am I doing this? To write a lot more then I do today and break through (even if it’s only a little) the pain and suffering I get when I need to sit down and convey my thoughts via the written word.

If I publish much of anything on a weekly basis, and no less then 50 times this year, I get a ⭐ and a 🍭.

What I hope comes along with writing is finding my voice, clarifying and articulating my opinions, and connecting with others.

I’m not grading myself on that though. If I write 50 posts that are just as stupid as when I started and everyone unsubscribes so I have my starting list of three emails (me, another email for me, and my wife who I signed up without telling her), it still counts as a 🙌 .

This is my why. This is what I’m doing here.

48 more posts ‘til I nab that 🍭

🤞,

a.

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It might be a long walk but if you’re curious this where the “What’re we doing here?” phrase came from for me 👇.

In 2015, Al Madrigal was on Pete Holmes’s podcast “You Made It Weird” and was talking about how he dumped his girlfriend on the spot when she didn’t know who Don Knotts was. Al looked at her and said… “What are we doing here?”

Just remembering that moment makes me laugh. In the replaying in my memory it’s come to mean “what’s the point here?”.

Here’s the snippet:

The whole episode is fun - listen here 👉 You Made It Weird - Al Madrigal.