Friends of Dave #400: 🎶 the hills are alive 🏞️
What have you done 400 times?
Friends, this week marks a big milestone: the 400th consecutive edition of the FoD.
Holy 💩.
400 weeks. Just about 8 years.
Doing a little unofficial math, I’ve probably written over 320,000 words in this preamble…..and many of you have, amazingly, actually chosen to read those 320,000 sometimes BS, sometimes funny, sometimes thought provoking, hopefully mostly entertaining words.
My oldest son, who is starting his second year of grad school in a few weeks, recently asked me about how I go about writing these each week. He is starting to think about his own next chapter after he completes his advanced degree, and believes that writing is going to play a big role in what he wants to do professionally.
He sometimes struggles with putting his thoughts together so he can effectively organize them in a LinkedIn post, paper or email, and he wanted to know how I manage to do it every week.
I told him there really is no secret — I find with writing, like most things, you just need to start and to be consistent.
The repetition of organizing 800 to 1000 words (actually more when you factor in the self editing that usually occurs writing these) every week for close to 8 years is sort of like a workout.
For those of you that are dedicated to working out, you know that not every one is good or goes smoothly. Sometimes you struggle. Sometimes you don’t want to go. Sometimes you phone it in.
But if you do it consistently, you see results — weights get easier to lift, times get faster, calories get burned. You feel better. So you keep doing it. And if you think about all of this BEFORE you start, and wait for the “perfect” time, I guarantee you will never do it.
It got me thinking:
How many things can you say you have done at least 400 times in your life?
Whether it is brushing your teeth, driving a car, running a mile, cooking a certain dish or recipe or telling your kids to turn out the lights when they leave a room, it all started with you deciding (or someone deciding for you) one day it was important enough to just start.
Then, you just did it…over and over…again and again….
You listened to feedback. You watched others doing it. You patted yourself on the back. You got better at it. You made mistakes and changed your approach. Maybe you even got frustrated and almost stopped.
And then all of a sudden, before you knew it — 💥boom💥, you did it 400 times.
When I decided to start writing the FoD, I can tell you I didn’t envision I would be doing it every week for 8 years. I wasn’t sure I could do it for 8 weeks.
I just knew it was important enough to me to start writing again and be consistent doing it.
Friends, if I am being honest, I don’t think I have another 400 of these in me. Hell, there are times when I don’t think I have another four. And when you think about the things you have chosen to have done at least 400 times, you probably think the same about those from time to time.
But when I look back, I know it has become a habit that is worth it. So I’ll be at it again next week….and probably the week after….and probably the week after that….
Thanks for being on this journey with me.
XOXO
Dave
And now a few things to make you smarter…
From tropical rainforest nations to the sandy deserts of North Africa and the Middle East, the world’s wettest and driest countries are a study in contrasts.
Here is a map and rank of the countries that receive the highest and lowest average annual precipitation in millimeters, per latest data from the World Bank.
It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.
In Through the Looking Glass, Alice gets schooled by the Red Queen in an important life lesson that many of us fail to heed. Alice finds herself running faster and faster but staying in the same place. It happens to everyone. Rather than run harder, wouldn’t it be nice to run smarter?
The absence of audio recording technology makes “when” a tough question to answer. But there are some theories as to “why.”
Ettore “Hector” Boiardi decided to open his own restaurant in Cleveland named Il Giardino d’Italia (The Garden of Italy). People would ask to be able to take home his sauce or for his recipe, and he would sell his sauce in washed-out milk bottles until his fateful encounter with some of his guests who would help him to can and sell it at their market. He changed his label to read Boyardee so that people would know how to pronounce his name. It became the start of what would become a huge name in the food industry that we know and love today.
"The story was too romantic. It was tears cutting out of your eyes…And then all the other people in the film seemed to be Nazis. So a lot of small problems that were disgusting for the Salzburg people.”
Nearly 3 million people from around the world visit each year Salzburg, Austria, a town with just 160,000 residents. The Salzburg Festival and sites related to Mozart, who was born there, also rival for attention, with the city pulling in around a billion euros (a similar amount in dollars) per year from tourism, according to local government statistics.
The 60th anniversary of The Sound of Music's theatrical release next year won't be song and dance for everyone. The special occasion could spell another peak in visitors for a city already grappling with overtourism. And despite the global appeal, many Salzburg locals haven't seen the film or feel little emotional connection to the story filled with uplifting plotlines and catchy Rodgers and Hammerstein tunes.