No clue how long this blog will last. No clue if anyone will care what’s being written. No clue if this is a waste of time or the best thing I’ve ever tried. Not sure that’s really the point.
I do know that 25+ years of work in the high-tech space has afforded me the chance to make a ton of mistakes, hopefully learn from them, and get better. Always get better.
Sometimes I get asked to provide coaching, mentoring, advising, and feedback. It’s hugely flattering and humbling that anyone would see me as someone who has something to offer them. And that’s where the idea for this blog was born.
I’ve had the idea for a long time--my friend Pat Morrissey and I once had a blog called the “Performance Guys” focused on the topic of enterprise performance management. I think we had a column at one point too. We ran out of steam as we moved onto new jobs, but the idea of putting some thoughts down on paper has been there since then.
But here’s the thing. It’s one thing to talk about the wisdom you have and the experiences you can share, it’s another thing altogether to put it to paper. That’s been the sticking point for me for a long time. But no more.
A few years ago for the holidays I got my entire team a book called “Do the Work” by Steven Pressfield (he’s written a bunch of great books that I highly recommend). The book talks about that inner voice inside of all of us--he calls it the “resistance” that conspires to keep our awesomeness inside of us and never wanting us to share it with the world. And the only way to overcome this resistance is to do the work--or “Just do it,” as Nike would say. My favorite Amelia Earhardt quote goes like this: “The easiest way to do it is to just do it.” (Maybe that’s where Nike got their inspiration for their quote!).
So this blog is my attempt to just do it--to do the work. It won’t be just me. In fact, I may try to entice a few friends back into the blogging game to contribute, co-own, and guest-blog as well. I certainly don’t have all the answers. I’m certain that they have more than I do. So we’ll see.
But for now, away we go.