September 8, 2026
Great to see people at Kickoff last week. I'm slowly (very slowly) getting the hang of selfies and Instagram - special thanks to Ja'sai Simmons for the assist on Wednesday night. As a few people have pointed out, LinkedIn is more suited to my strengths, but I'm learning.
“Getting good at Instagram” and “being less bad at selfies” are lowly ambitions. But not all ambitions need to be grand, not all skills need to be LinkedIn worthy. Some things are worth pursuing because the stakes are low. Some of the happiest and most professionally successful people I know spend time doing things that seem superfluous or silly - an early political mentor of mine went to pottery camp with his wife and used the mugs they made in his office, a friend who is a successful business owner took a romance novel writing class, another friend who is the CEO of an AI startup launched a coffee truck, a college classmate with a long career in Silicon Valley wrote a comic spy novel and recently bought a community radio station where his self-appointed title is “Assistant to the Advertiser's Success Manager.” The list goes on. None of these people did these things because they were professionally useful or profitable (most lost money and time, but hope springs eternal). Not everyone stuck with their new ventures. They did them because they were fun and interesting things to do.
Only doing things that help you get to the next thing and then doing things that get you to the thing after that can be a grueling way to live. Put in the work to succeed professionally. Grind when you have to, put in longer hours than you want to, do the hard work.
Also make time for the extraneous. Become a Federally Permitted Bat Biologist, learn how to make balloon animals, join a student group because the people seem fun and interesting rather than because it could be useful to have done.
Along the way you will meet new people and make new connections. You will be more interesting to be around. You will learn how to think in new ways and see angles and ideas you might not have otherwise seen. Doing non-professional, seemingly pointless things is among the most professionally sound things you can do. Mostly it's fun, and that's reason enough.