Now What?

Hey!

I have a friend, Jon Peck, and I’ve known Jon for about 20 years.

Jon is a great podcast producer, based in Boston, and he’s worked on some really great radio and podcast productions over the years.

His specialty is audience building.

So, when he tells me something about how to talk to people, I listen.

One challenge he has offered me is to make more of the podcast and newsletter feel even more like a conversation between me and you.

Which it is.

I’m always writing to one specific person.

But, to Jon’s credit, he points out that I don’t always do a good job of making it clear or I take the impact out of it by saying things like “y’all” or being too generic when addressing you.

Sometimes, I when I’m writing or thinking about marketing, I write to Julia McDowell.

I’ve known Julia for years and she emails me from time to time when something really hits for her.

Julia used to work at an ad agency and now works with non-profits, so I find myself thinking about what she would think of a certain idea.

If I ever mention anything London related, you can know that I’m writing for my friend, Tim Chambers, at that time.

Why?

Because Tim is my man in London and I look forward to seeing him every time I’m in town.

He was also the first person that emailed me when the Pearl Jam concert at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium was announced.

Tim knew it would be too much to ask me to miss that.

Kathryn and I are in the pit!!!

I’m track here which you know, happens.

Anyway, on Friday, I was taking a walk before a meeting I had and I was listening to ‘The Uncensored CMO’ by System1, hosted by Jon Evans.

Jon was talking with Bozoma Saint John about her new book.

I don’t know if I knew what I was going to get from the episode, but I got a lot and the thing that really stuck with me was the way that Jon and Boze talked about “sliding door moments”.

We’ve all had them.

I’ve maybe had more than most, but we will get there in a minute.

I promise.

For Boze, her life changed when her husband died 4 days before his 44th birthday.

For Jon, it was getting fired and starting a project to meet 100 people in 100 days, which can totally happen in London.

I love London!

What they shared was how the inflection point changed them and made them who they are today.

That’s where I come back to me and you.

One of the great “sliding doors moments” for me was actually leaving Ft. Lauderdale to go to St. Louis.

I will save the full details for another day, but moving from Florida to Missouri was a big moment because it helped me break out of a comfortable zone that only in retrospect wasn’t all that comfortable.

It was more of a rut.

But the surroundings were nice.

And, I knew people.

I was close to people.

Sort of.

To quote Michael Stipe, “I was alone in crowd.”

So, pulling up those roots was a big step that opened the door to Seattle, NYC, DC, and traveling the world.

And, all of this and MORE was cycling through my head and I realized that that one moment gave me the power to ask myself the question: “Now what?”

I’ve used that question a lot over the years without ever realizing that I was doing it.

Even with my consulting clients.

“Now what?” might be hand in hand with “What does success look like?”

In fact, I think it is the key moment in so many iterations and changes. You have an experience, you succeed or fail, but you move on and you aren’t the same…

Now what?

That’s where I come back to you.

I’m curious about you and your “sliding doors” moments.

I’m curious about what has caused you to change, good and bad. Because a lot of the biggest positive changes come out of some of our biggest mistakes and failures.

The flip side of going to St. Louis was leaving St. Louis because the nightclub we opened didn’t go like we planned.

I moved to Seattle with less than $700.

No friends.
No contacts.
No place to stay.

I did okay for myself.

Again, a story for another day.

But I want to hear from you.

Tell me about your “sliding doors moments”.

Did you recognize them at the time?

How did you react?

What did they lead you to do?

I definitely would like to see if this idea is good and holds up to scrutiny from you.

But I also feel like a lot of people we run into every day are at “sliding doors moments” right now that we don’t even recognize.

And, to go one step further up the ladder, I feel like our culture, our businesses, and societies are at a moment where we are asking ourselves that question, even if we don’t know that is exactly what we are doing.

But you tell me.

This is our conversation. And, if I am going down a path that is ridiculous, pull me back.

But Jon’s conversation with Boze brought the idea of inflection points and now what to me and I realized that I had been thinking about it a lot without even realizing it.

Maybe you have the same feeling.

Let me know.

Dave

P.S. You’ve made it this far, share this with someone that you think might have a cool story to share or has been feeling a little like, “Now what?”

I appreciate you for being here with me today.