"Dreams are awesome. But life is about what you do when you're awake." Louie Giglio
What I'm working on:
Feel like I mostly sat on various transportation mechanisms this week tbh (see above photo).
RightNow Conference Chicago took place on May 17-18, which means Monday, Tuesday and half of Wednesday were a scramble to make sure all the usual tasks — planning, writing and scheduling social media posts for the week and next, prepping ad campaigns to release soon after our return, and generally ensuring that nothing for which I am responsible would catch on fire in my absence — were taken care of before hopping on a plane to the Windy City. (Disappointing update: we were actually in a suburb southwest of Chicago proper, and it was not that windy at all!!! I could have safely worn a flimsy hat.)
I've said it before, but I love working our conferences. I like feeling like I'm working less on the internet and more in the actual, physical world, if that makes sense — running around taking photos and video, engaging with people in real time on our platforms, and helping out with random odd jobs. It's also a chance to spend a lot of time with coworkers, including those I don't work with closely in a typical week. It feels kind of like camp, but with your office? Which works out well because my office is full of people I would totally want to go to camp with.
Conferences are definitely a sprint, though, and by the end of this one I was feeling it. While the rest of the team headed back to Dallas, I caught a flight to Atlanta, where I planned to board a connection to Raleigh Durham, rent a car, and drive three hours to Lynchburg for my sister's college graduation.
Instead, I hit a travel snag in Atlanta that snowballed into one of those bizarre-to-the-point-of-objectively-fascinating nights that make for great stories later on but at the time make you just want to never leave home again. (We all know I will, though!!!) Many unfortunate events later, I landed back in Dallas at 10:30 this morning, where I have since taken a wonderful nap and received many live-texts of Reagan's graduation day. The end!
Randoms for your weekend:
- Austin Kleon's "How to Keep Going" talk is a preview of his next book. I could not be more excited.
- Tim Ferriss's recent podcast episode with Nick Thompson, editor-in-chief of Wired Magazine, was one of my favorites ever. If you're a longform writer, there is SO much good stuff in this. I was geeking out so hard that I actually re-started it immediately after finishing and listened to it again, straight through.
- Brb driving every single one of these. (Also, what a great website design.)
- If you, like the rest of the world, got caught up in the Laurel/Yanny thing, The Atlantic posted a really interesting article about it. My takeaway: The brain is amazing, yo.
- I loved this post so much. Such important advice.
- Also stolen from the swissmiss newsletter — this "21 Facts That Are Wholesome Little Rays of Light in This Cold, Dark World" from Buzzfeed is obviously written with a touch of humor, but after another week of heavy sadness in the news, it honestly is important, I think, to focus on the good. Not because the bad doesn't exist or we're burying our head in the sand (both, remember?), but because it takes light to move forward in darkness. And even if it's just a chuckle over a dumb animal fact, small is as good a place as any to start.
