December 2019: A newsletter
/Status: 🌲🚎❄️
Housekeeping: I’m closing in on 365 miles run in 2019 and if I get there it’ll amount to one-per-24-hrs at an average pace of approximately 7:47/mile. Rewards: pride (which is forever), and maybe a tin of seasonal butter cookies (equally enduring).
The local snowsports season remains stuck in the slush and apparently Washington’s Best Ski Community is a Parking Lot. Sweet but this has lasted long enough. If someone could just turn on the snow machine I’d like to move up the mountain. In the meantime it’s goblet squats and kettlebell swings and the LPP (Low Pressure Podcast) for yours truly.
I started at Formative in August. We’re a boutique marketing agency specializing in strategy, campaigns, and communications for foundations, NGOs, and brands who are focused on doing well by doing good. 👍
I’m also now commuting by bus. [Insert mental image of fellow travelers and their accoutrement, including but not limited to: canis lupus familiaris, shopping carts, vaping and other smoke products (some in use), birds, a ferret, felis catus domesticus, food and beverage, and one preacher]. With the inclusion of being thrice ghosted by the 29 - in the rain - it’s meeting expectations. Also: Man on bus can tell by surroundings he either hasn’t reached stop yet or passed stop long time ago. That man is not me but I can relate. Pull cord for recos.
Twenty nineteen has been a good reading year. Recently: Tools and Weapons by Brad Smith, Stillness is the Key by Ryan Holiday, Call Sign Chaos by James Mattis, The First 90 Days by Michael Watkins, Bad Blood by John Carreyrou, Range by David Epstein, and more. In the words of General James Mattis, author of Call Sign Chaos, “If you haven’t read hundreds of books, you are functionally illiterate and you will be incompetent because your personal experiences aren’t broad enough to sustain you.” Stick that in your stocking.
Speaking of personal experiences 🔨: It’s hard to overstate the importance of reskilling in every category of the working world. Starter pack: 1.) Redefining the role of the leader in the reskilling era; and 2.) Why companies are failing at reskilling. Talk amongst yourselves.
Thanks to the miracle of 5G, I’m also able to stream videos on the bus, including Masterclass sessions on film & tv, culinary arts, design, photography, business, science and technology, and more. I also recently rewatched Casey Neistat’s Human Flying Drone and am now in a 57% (est.) more festive mood. 📹
By this point all three of you have hopefully gathered that this is not a holiday letter. No really. Also if you haven’t heard, My mother’s annual holiday letter is spreading fake news. Not mine IRL but click and you’ll get the gist. Be careful what you believe 🎅🏻
In a quest for shock-and-awe, I’m meditating on Very Easy Apple Cake. It’s the Very Easy (not just Easy) that has drawn my attention and demands analysis. More eventually.
And finally, as ever, a quote: “You can hold your breath until you turn blue, but they’ll still go on doing it.” -Marcus Aurelius. That they will. Remember it all goes on sale in January.
Ahoy for 2020.
-John