Yearly Archives: 2014

A Successful Plan

“Nothing that happened was intentional. Nothing. Everything was about trying to make something cool for our friends that they would like.” — Rick Rubin, on the only plan he ever had for Def Jam Records

This quote has been resonating with me ever since I heard it in a short documentary on producer Rick Rubin. In it, he visits the New York University dorm room where he started and ran Def Jam Records for its first few years. In fact, if you bought a Def Jam album during those early days, the business address printed on the sleeve was the address of that very same room. The album was likely shipped to the record store from the mailroom in the dorm by one of his classmates. They had some memorable parties at that dorm, for sure. It was college after all. But those parties are now even more memorable in hindsight because all of Rick’s friends were there and many of Rick’s friends were people that are household names — Rap music legends — now.

Def Jam Records went on to become, even today, one of the most powerful and profitable labels in music. Rick Rubin went on to produce musicians way beyond Rap. Credited in no small part with resurrecting the careers of living legends and always having the finger on the pulse of the next big thing. By any measure, one could make the argument that he is one of the most successful producers the music industry has ever known.

But, I would be willing to bet that even today he’s still just, “…trying to make something cool for our friends that they would like.” That his current success in no more intentional today than it was back then. The reason I suspect this is because it is a successful plan. A solid plan that worked then and remains a plan that works today. And, it’s a plan that scales. Because, if your friends like it then the chances are good that there are millions of other people just like them who would like it too. And, if you can make something millions of people like and place a fair price on it then you will sell millions of that thing and make millions of dollars in the process.

And, sure, there are many other factors to go from selling to a few friends to selling to millions of strangers. Luck, timing, and dozens of other factors mostly out of your control certainly come into play in order to reach those kinds of numbers. But, the one thing you can shoot for — to make something cool for your friends that they would like — is a measure of success that is achievable by all. And, even if you argue against it being your only measure of success you have to admit that it is a pretty good place to start counting it.

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Sleepwatching (An Ode To Beatrix)

Sometimes, I watch you sleep. I hear you, restless, saying something incoherent over the buzzing monitor box that has never quite worked but has never been bad enough to replace. I wait for a few seconds because, sometimes, you settle and the buzzing box is silent for the remainder of the night. But, occasionally, the restless, incoherent, mumbling continues and sounds like, possibly, you could be having a bad dream. So I venture up the back stairs into your room to check on you. I put my hand on your shoulder or rub your back and let you know that you are OK — you’re just having a dream. You rarely wake up. Though it often, but not always, settles you. Yet, I remain for a few minutes more, to watch you.

I watch and wonder what someone at your age might dream about. I watch because you are just as beautiful, captivating, and as full of life as each moment you are awake. I marvel at how I, we, could have produced something, someone, so magical. I watch to listen to you breathe and to smell the shampoo in your recently washed hair. I watch and envision what you might one day become once you find out that Cowgirl Princess Ballerina’s aren’t in very high demand in this modern economy. Yet, I’m sure, you could probably make it work with the same grace and charm you use with deft skill on anyone who meets you.

I hope to be there, one day, to watch you live every one of those crazy dreams that you dream and watch your every desire lay itself prostrate before you. I know that one day, it will no longer be my job to watch you sleep but, instead, be that of another who I hope will love and cherish you as much as I do and will be filled with the same overwhelming emotions I have in these few moments I spend here watching you. Before I leave the room and close the door and let the angels I’m sure surround you resume their place — watching you sleep.

Random Notes and Recent Thoughts #3

I haven’t done one of these in a while. Here are some short ideas I have yet to fully flesh out but are complete enough to share right now anyway. Perhaps in doing so they will drive a discussion that will lead to a longer post.

  • When “No” is your default, the things that fight their way to “Yes” have a deeper value and meaning. They not only have to earn their place, they have to maintain their worth to keep it. “Yes” is important. “Yes” means that something really matters to me. But, this is only the case — and I would argue only can be the case — when “Yes” is not easy and “No” is the default.

  • It is not enough to simply accept, put-up-with, or ignore those things that might drive us nuts about our partners in a relationship. We must learn to appreciate them. Find the ways in which those things might, in fact, be a part of what makes the other person so great. Unless we do, we risk it becoming the chink that becomes a hole that, under pressure, breaks the dam.

  • Like wide margins in a book makes it easier and more pleasurable to read, leaving wide margins in your life makes it easier and more pleasurable to live. Also, having margins in a book leaves lots of room to make notes, observations, doodle, and offer your thoughts. So goes margins in life, too.

  • The reason for quantifying your commitments, and making the time and space for them on a calendar, is as much about committing to your tasks and projects as it is to committing to the margins.

  • The gulf between irresponsibility and opportunity is bridged by intention.

  • Kindness is a habit. One that is strengthened and improved the more you are so.

  • Always get the best paint you can buy. The difference between the good stuff and everything else is measured in decades and, in some cases, centuries.

  • Just a little bit more effort goes such a long way because so many do so much less than the minimum required.