The Second Act
Howdy,
Sitting in Chicago right now, just published the latest Rands piece that newsletter subscribers saw in the last edition. Thanks for the feedback; it was incorporated. There was an out-of-nowhere piece that was published this weekend — a crap time for traffic — but whatever, I do love my Hyper key. I do love incremental improvements.
Here in the Windy City because I'm doing a talk. It's a talk I've done before, The Second Act, but the reason I'm here and the talk itself represent two important lessons:
Lesson #1: I'm here because many years ago, I took the entire leadership team at my first start-up, the One You've Never Heard of, to a hockey store. This was when roller hockey was all the rage and, well, I wanted to play more roller hockey. The entire exec team went along with all their staff. No, I did not pick up the bill. Yes, I got to play a lot more roller hockey with the team.
There was a product manager at that hockey excursion. A good human, a human I spoke with on and off in the twenty+ years since start-up roller hockey. At a prior Chicago visit, we chatted, and he said, "You should do a talk here." So we figured it out.
The lesson: you never know how your actions will affect those you will need in the future.
Lesson #2: The Second Act is a talk I built in 2016. I was doing a keynote at Riot Games. It was the second time I presented there. I have no recollection of how that first talk went, but I know that when I presented The Second Act, I crushed. How do I know? Unexpected claps, unexpected laughs, and a... standing ovation? What is going on here?
Three standing ovations in hundreds of talks over many years. They basically never happen, and this was the first. What was unique about this talk? Right message, right time is the short answer, but it is also a good talk.
Prior to Riot, I was under the belief that I needed to write a new talk for every event. This is an incredibly inefficient strategy because the up-front cost of every talk, for me, is ginormous. More importantly, a good talk, like a good song, is a different experience live. And finally, each time you give a talk, you have an opportunity to make it better.
I did not know until I did the research that The Second Act is ten years old. I didn't know this because I give the talk once or twice a year, and each time I give it, I improve it a little here, a little there.
The lesson: build and maintain evergreen content.
Which reminds me... I need to update that talk.
Be well,
Rands
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