🎤 Quotable quotes: “There’s two buttons I never like to hit: that’s panic and snooze."
— Ted Lasso
We have a confession to make.
This is the 100th edition of Weekly Curiosities.
That feels like it should call for something big. Our greatest insight. Our funniest Ted Lasso observation. Perhaps a commemorative plate.
Instead, when it came time to write this week's newsletter, we had... nothing. No brilliant idea. No perfect story. No headline we'd been saving for a special occasion.
And then we realized that might be the perfect way to celebrate 100 editions.
Because somehow, we still sat down to write one.
💯 The Magic of 100
When we started Weekly Curiosities, we weren't thinking about edition #100. We were thinking about edition #1. Then we wrote #2. Eventually there was a #17, a #43, a #72, and apparently someone kept count because here we are at #100.
Some editions practically wrote themselves. Others required a little more convincing. There were weeks when something happened in the world and we immediately knew what we wanted to say. And there were weeks when a blank screen stared back at us as if to say, Good luck with this one.
But we kept showing up.
When you think about it, that's how most things worth doing actually work. Very few of them are built through one enormous burst of inspiration. They're built through a whole bunch of ordinary Tuesdays when you do the thing you said you were going to do.
🏟 The Richmond Way
Ted didn't walk into AFC Richmond and transform the place with one magnificent leadership speech. He did it through hundreds of seemingly insignificant moments.
He brought Rebecca biscuits every morning. He asked questions. He remembered people's names. He listened. He practiced. He checked in. He put a homemade BELIEVE sign over the door and somehow convinced a room full of professional footballers that a piece of yellow construction paper mattered.
None of those things, by themselves, transformed Richmond.
Together, they did.
That's the part of consistency we sometimes overlook. We tend to celebrate the big moments: the championship, the promotion, the graduation, the finished book, or, apparently, the 100th newsletter. But those moments are usually just the visible result of hundreds of much less exciting moments that came before them.
🌱 You Don't Have to Be Brilliant Every Wednesday
There's a lesson here that we've both had to learn more than once. We tend to think consistency means producing our best every time.
It doesn't.
You won't crush every presentation. Every workout won't be a personal best. Every conversation with your kids won't become a cherished family memory. Every idea won't be brilliant. And we can assure you that every one of these 100 newsletters wasn't our favorite.
Consistency isn't about being great every time. It's about continuing to put yourself in position for something great to happen.
Some days you bring your A-game.
Some days you just bring yourself.
Both count.
🧱 What Are You Building?
There's something else interesting about doing something 100 times. Somewhere along the way, it stops being something you're trying to do and starts becoming something you do.
A workout becomes a habit. A weekly phone call becomes part of a friendship. Asking better questions changes the way you lead. Reading every night eventually makes you someone who reads. Writing something every week apparently makes you newsletter people.
The individual repetitions rarely feel significant while they're happening. That's the strange thing about consistency. You don't necessarily notice yourself changing in the moment.
Then one day you look up and realize you've built something.
🏁 Final Thought
We're proud of reaching 100 editions of Weekly Curiosities. But we're probably even more grateful for the 99 deadlines that came before this one.
They forced us to notice things. To stay curious. To talk about ideas together. To look at the world through a slightly different lens. To occasionally argue about whether something was actually funny. And every week, to sit down and try again.
Which brings us back to this week's problem.
We didn't have an idea for newsletter #100.
We showed up anyway.
Turns out, that was the idea.
Thanks for showing up with us.
Here's to 100 more.
— Nick & Marnie
Your tea sipping, curiosity chasing, apparently very persistent friends
More leadership musings
🍪 Biscuits with the Boss:
So for edition #100, here's our question:
What's something worth doing that you've stopped doing because you weren't doing it perfectly?
Maybe it's exercising, writing, calling someone, learning something new, making time for your team, or having dinner together more often.
What would happen if you stopped worrying about doing it brilliantly and simply started showing up again?
🌎 This week in Here - There - Every F’ing where
We were invited by Heather Handler (Author of The Educator's Guide to Youth Apprenticeships and Program Coordinator for CTE) to keynote for 75 CTE teachers. (Happy to report - Nick is back on two feet after the broken ankle :) ). It was a great morning!
Believe!
Nick & Marnie
P.S. Everyone in the room wanted the lesson plans that accompany The Business of You (for their classes or ideas for their book study). So, if you are reading this and would like a copy, just let us know.
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