Every WordPress site starts out with a sample blog post: “Hello world!”
Over the years, I have launched maybe a hundred sites from scratch; many were solo sites devoted to one of my million interests that never gets fully chased down, and the rest were various client sites, from e-commerce to non-profit. One of the first actions on every one of them was to delete that post out. Sometimes, I had some clever-to-me post about the site name or what I planned to write about. Some, for clients, we just imported the thousand posts they already had.
This site is different, so I wanted to start different.
I’m leaving the title on this post, as it really is a sort of awakening. This site, and the whole idea it is here to support, has been a twinkle in my eye for over a decade. It is the encapsulation of my “WHY?”: I want to help people actualize every drop of their potential through the synthesis of productivity, mindfulness, fitness, and technology. I have done this in the past, both in full time roles and as a consultant, but only in pieces and parts. Building a technology base for a start-up, or erasing technical debt with an existing firm, or just stepping in and revising a business process that was not as efficient as it could be.
This site will be the home base that ties together all of this and more. Everything, from blog posts to technology reviews to podcasts to videos. I will detail the systems and technologies I use day to day, the struggles and successes, and especially the mistakes I make so that you can learn from them. We will talk about how to work better, how to live better, and, most importantly how to find the thing that drives you.
We are going to talk about every aspect of effectiveness, from both the perspective of the individual and the team. Individual workflows, leadership, right down to how to fuel and recharge the meat sacks that drag us through this world. We will go further- how to advance the causes of ethical and equitable relationships, how to build environments that not only allow people to do their best work, how to find people who want to do their best work. And then, how to keep them.
This site, this idea- my excitement at this opportunity is palpable. Not in some car commercial way, but in a childhood Christmas Eve sort of way. There was a line in Fight Club:
Fight club gets to be your reason for going to the gym and keeping your hair cut short and cutting your nails.
This site, this idea- this is why I brush my teeth and take my vitamins and get my doctor-recommended 30 minutes of daily activity.
My belief in function before form and radical transparency will guide the content and development of the site. I will never paywall information on this site, and I will work on it in real-time with no efforts to hide the warts as we move forward. I will hit ‘publish’ frequently, even if it is only a tweet. We have a sister-site, Rubber City Creative, that is home to our web design, photography, SEO, and content business, and between the two, I think that we can help anyone communicate and achieve their vision. I’d say I “can’t wait to get started”, but we already have. This site is live, if rough, and it will be changing daily as we move forward. Welcome to the ride!