Part 1: Rocks, Dancing, and the Neverending Existential Journey
I’m Doug.
No… not that Doug. The other Doug. Not the fun Doug who does all the cool AI stuff, but the wrong Doug who does marketing things.
If you got this far, thank you! I appreciate you being here. When the opportunity to write blogs presented itself, I thought “I can do this. Could be fun? Words are easy.” And as onetime high school English teacher, a guy who is most looking forward to visiting the Hemingway house on his vacation to the Keys, and a former aspiring author who once dreamed to write the next great American novel, this makes total sense in my existential journey – which sounds much better than “midlife crisis.”
And then LBR emailed that the deadline is fast approaching, and I realized I have nothing to write about. Less than a week into this journey, and I already have writer’s block.
But then the epiphany happens, and all thanks to Jim Finn and his email to me that said…
“I am dancing as we speak!!!”
1. Rocks
Sometimes I’d rather someone smash my toes with rocks since walking with that limp would be less painful than my current metaphorical limp to the finish line with my lead sharing rock. But like most things in life, I never get what I want.
Like all rocks, this one started with good intentions, a lot of optimism, and general excitement of creating a scoring model and a repeatable process to share leads with business partners. Sounds easy enough, and I’m nerdy enough and just enough of a recluse to enjoy sitting behind a computer screen jamming this out. And of course, the famous last words of “how hard can this be” crept into my brain. That’s when I should have known I was doomed.
My honest rock review:
- Built a lead scoring model. Knew I nailed it.
- Tried to explain it. Immediately questioned my life choices. Had wine.
- Screamed into the void.
- Updated the model. Froze in fear knowing it wasn’t ready.
- More iterations. Lost sleep. Continued to question my life choices.
- Read every article, blog, Reddit thread there was. Made cat portraits.
- Became (even more) emotionally attached to ChatGPT. Drank wine.
- Tested more processes and workflows. Screamed louder into the void.
- Consulted anyone and everyone who I thought could help. Mostly seeking emotional support.
- Built workflows on top of processes on top of workflows inside of processed workflows.
- More screaming. More wine. Less sleep.
- Enter Jim.
Every time I absolutely knew I had a solution, a new hurdle appeared. Some were technical. Some were logic-based. Some were the kind of challenges where everything technically works, but no one understands it. Which, as it turns out, is not a great process either. The endless loop of iterate, test, panic, wine, make cat portraits, repeat is not just untenable, but it’s a soul sucking existence of feeling trapped, inadequate, and dumber than a box of rocks.
2. Dancing
After countless failed trials and tests and bad ideas, I started grinding out a much simpler version of the lead-sharing process – mostly out of exhaustion, partially out of desperation, and a tiny bit because my laptop fan was starting to sound like a jet engine. It wasn’t pristine. It wasn’t elegant. But it kind of worked. At least enough for me to say, “This might not break anything.”
Then I had a quick conversation with Jim where he was asking about the progress.
Jim, in all his infinite Jim-ness, didn’t critique or question or request 17 edge-case scenarios. He just responded:
“I am dancing as we speak!!!” (Actually used three exclamation points, too.)
Meanwhile, I had been spiraling into paralysis by analysis, second-guessing every automation, every scoring rule, every field mapping in HubSpot and Salesforce like I was Neo and was decoding the Matrix. My brain hurt. I had been buried so deep in my own thoughts and minutiae that I forgot the simplest thing: Done is better than perfect, and perfection is, was, and always will be the enemy of progress.
That quick exchange with Jim snapped me out of it. Not because it solved everything, but because it reminded me that the process didn’t need to be flawless, it needed to be functional. And most importantly, it needed to be something people could actually use without needing a user manual the size of a phone book, a week-long training, and continuing education courses built around it. You know… keep it simple, stupid.
3. The Journey Continues
Since you can’t have an existential journey and not document what you learn, here’s what I’ve figured out.
This rock was dirty, mean, and nasty. It drove me bonkers. If the rock was a person, I’d probably want to throat punch him…. Twice. But all the failures I had in the dark when no one was watching weren’t just broken workflows and incomplete processes. They were data, and perspective, and growth. Each failure taught me something. Not just about the tech, but also about the people I work with, how they think, what they need, and how they operate. Failing sucks, but it’s still probably the best teacher.
So yes, the model isn’t pristine. It probably will still break and need built bigger and better. But it’s out there. People are getting value from it. And one of them is dancing. I’ll take that as a win.
I’ll see you out there.
-Doug
