#10 Noise Will Be Noise

Serve and suffer less of it

Hello from winter wonderland! We have fresh snow, bright sun, and hot springs all on the agenda this week. I hope your December is shaping up as nicely.  

Despite the great weather, I've been indoors, bopping this keyboard and clicking on problems as everyone rushes a few more wins before the holiday. Chaos before the storm.

To be honest, I love these "sprint times" of the year. I think there are about 6 of them. There’s just something I’ve always liked about finding focus in the din of big whitewater (not a metaphor).

And that's what's on my mind this week–NOISE. We all make it, and we all take it. So here's to a little less of both.

Check out this question I found on Reddit: 

"Would you rather make $0.01 every time you breathe, or $0.10 every time you blink?"

It turns out we breathe around 16 times per minute and blink about 18. So depending on your sleep schedule, the math pays $84K per year on breathing, and $600K for blinking.  

The big lesson from this is I have a scrolling problem. 

(The second lesson is now you can't stop noticing how much you blink.) So two weeks ago, I bought and installed a Brick, which “kind of” does to your phone what its name implies. You can brick individual apps, for different scenarios.

So far, I've really enjoyed it. It's not just that my screen time is down, it's that I'm reducing my screen time during the best times, the downtimes. I'm getting more relax out of my relax. 

But your iPhone is just one shiny crab in a vast sea of monsters and demigods (Moana reference).

The real question is how do you brick your LIFE?  

The first method most founders and leaders turn to is a good calendar. But calendars can be a seductive non-solution.

Bill Gates has described his calendar as packed for him in 3-minute increments, even to include tasks like shaving. Yet, Warren Buffet’s calendar might have only 3 entries in a month.  

There's a 2017 interview where the two of them over-discuss it at Columbia. Two gems they agree on: Gates says, As a CEO, "it's not a proxy of your seriousness that you've filled every minute of your schedule."  Buffet adds, "people are going to want your time, but time is the only thing you can't buy." 

Same idea, different methods. Each goes on to describe how they block and protect time for free thinking and curiosity. Meanwhile, Buffet's remark inadvertently shows the greatest weakness of calendars as a tool: the only thing they can manage is time. 

Prioritization is still up to you. (Know thyself, make time to shave thy face.)

And the signal:noise ratio during any time block is a wildcard, dealt by whoever you gave the half-hour to. 

The Bezos method of meetings is a strong one (1 well-written argument, meeting starts with reading it, ends with unstructured discussion of it), and I'm also a fan of Jensen Huang's T5T's (which just got a good write-up in WSJ). Publera has a similar-but-better method I stole from Sheryl Sandberg and we’ve adapted for dozens of C-somethings, which I’ll share in its own future issue of this newsletter. 

Whatever system you choose, the point is it's a system. How you receive information is an operational question. Ask it seriously.

Let's keep the brick analogy. You need a brick path to your door for signal, a brick wall for noise, and a good ole brick through your window anytime the whole place is about to burn down.

In other words, you need separate systems for: learning, focusing, and crisis.   

You can calendar those, but even though time is money, other things are money too. You need to set specific channels, mediums, and expectations for each of these three. Receiving, deciding/doing, and emergencies. Or: intake, output, fires.

I am a closet GTD disciple, and that book mentions other good methods if you can stay awake for it. But the GTD ethos also makes the #1 mistake I constantly see in almost all productivity and management theory: assuming a world with either perfect communication or no communication.

Neither is true. So GTD is 50% helpful at best, and if you have a large team, 0%. In real life, some noise is just unavoidable.

But more signal is invaluable.

In comms, we used to talk a lot about signal versus noise. It harkens back to a radio dial. Noise is the static between stations, which are signals. 

Or, say you're the CEO and you just emailed your sales team 10 new products, only 2 of which earn them a commission. That email was 80% noise.  

You can expect your next one to have an open-rate in the potty, and a CTA with no A.

(Best practice in that scenario is either pack the 8 free products into a narrative that matches the way you framed their comp, or get the Head of Sales to do it.)

The magic idea is reduce noise, increase results. 

Lately, I've noticed comms people don't seem to talk about this anymore. It could be that radios are quaint. But I think the real reason is that some modern consumer communication is actually better as noise now.

The reason for this is distribution: from news to news feeds, Strava jogs to travel blogs. Today’s platforms are designed to process noise with algorithms that deliver it as signal.  

In other words, you can just go ramble at Joe Rogan for 3 hours and at least one great sentence is going to be served to whoever already agrees with it. Easy peezy, thanks Zucky. 

The problem is this is marketing funnel persuasion. (You need a Joe Rogan, and even harder to acquire, three hours.)

Funnel persuasion works better for gadgets and gatorade (politics is somewhere between the two). A 20% open rate on your email marketing with 5% CTR is pretty awesome!

As a leader, on the other hand, you’ve invested in 100% of your team whether they read your emails or not, so you'd probably like most of them to give it a gander. Not to mention your call-to-action is calling for actual action on YOUR vision. 

My point is there’s a very important distinction between thought leadership and thought marketing.

Are you marketing, or are you leading?  Great leaders often become good marketers, but the opposite is much less common.

Also, marketing and leading each have their time and purpose, no judgement. But confusing the two—and confusing which you should be doing—is the surest possible way to make more noise than signal. 

(Can’t forget this little guy's life started as a marketing budget)

When it comes to motivating or inspiring people who do not already agree with you, noise is not a strategy for finding them. It's a liability for losing them.

If you're trying to truly lead people, reduce your noise. Hit them with signal. Like a brick to the face.

Ah the serenity,
Jesse

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PS: It's gift-list season, so I want to share the longest-tenured gift on my list that Emily has refused to buy me or allow me to buy for myself. (Please do not send this to me or I will be sleeping in it out on the streets). I mention it because I'm REALLY hoping one of you finds it as likably weird as I do, puts it in your home, and sends me a photo. I promise to frame the pic here in my office where that chair shall sadly never sit.

Also, speaking of pretty stupid gifts, we recently tried the $400 pineapple on a quiet anniversary date at home, and I would describe it as I do Emily: very sweet, and elegantly understated. (I bet you thought I was going to say "expensive taste.") Love is love and food is love too. My strong hope is that you all also have the metaphorical equivalent of Del Monte's finest by your side this holiday season.

And I’m personally grateful to be a part of your email reading time. Thank you!

PSS: A lot of you are sharing, (thanks!) but not using this referral link, so Beehiiv only lists a few of you partway to me sending you a book. Try this link. And I'm going to publish the 5 Must-Re-Read Books List soon, so you can see what's in there. Thanks for helping me grow this experiment!