Scott Porad

The post I wrote last week about hot chocolate was one of the most commented ever.  Comments on the blog, messages and comments on Facebook, and even some direct e-mail.  Here’s one of those e-mails that was sent to me by a friend who is a physician in Seattle:

Scott,

Your post about your deliberations with your hot chocolate reminded me of conversations that I have with my patients daily. I struggle with what is the most effective method to convey that the answer to the problem(s) is that he/she needs to change his/her behavior. Typically, one of three basics needs adjustment: nutrition, physical activity, and/or sleep. Unfortunately, after patients have paid their co-pay, many are disappointed to hear that I do not have or recommend a pill or procedure to fix “it.” Some even accuse me of being a “bad” doctor because I think that a pill is not the best medicine. This sets up an uncomfortable adversarial conversation.

My question to my husband last week was: “How do you tell your morbidly obese patients that the reason that they have knee pain is because they are fat?”

Behavior change – the simple, yet personally challenging answer.

I suppose that the answer to is that you have to just tell them. That’s the job. It must be horribly uncomfortable, but that’s the answer they need to hear.

For me, it was the answer I needed to hear.

After years of trying every medicine under the sun, my doctor finally just told me to change my diet.  When he did, I sat quietly for about 30 seconds, my mind racing to see if there was some way I could get around it.

Finally, I realized that there was no escaping—if I wanted to be healthy, I needed to change.  I looked up and asked, “So, about what percentage of your patients is the only solution to their problem changing their lifestyle and habits?”

His answer? 85%.

I live in Seattle about 40 minutes from the ski slopes. Every week in the winter I take my boys up for ski school, and many weeks I ski while they’re in class. I am extremely fortunate in this regard.

This week I’m not skiing; I am sitting in the chalet staring down my arch rival and nemesis, the Newman to my Jerry, Joker to my Batman, Evil Emperor Zurg to my Buzz Lightyear.

I am being taunted by a cup of hot cocoa.

But I haven’t caved yet.

For about a month, I’ve been ill. Not seriously ill in any sort of life threatening way. Please, do not worry about me one iota.

But, my doctor says that I really need to lay off a few foods that don’t agree with me, including sugar, milk and chocolate for a few months. I’m having a hard time with it.

Most of the time I can stay strong and avoid it, but inevitably one or twice a day I’m tempted by, say, my regular weekly ski chalet mug of hot chocolate. All to often, I cave in. For example, Kiki brought in cupcakes into Cheezburger on Friday, and they looked sooooo good, just one little cupcake won’t hurt will it?

But the thing is, it does hurt. Not a lot, but enough that my recovery is stunted…it’s taking me a lot longer than it should.

This whole thing has me thinking a lot lately about the fact that if you’re gonna do something, you gotta go all the way. I say “you”, but I really mean “me”.

In many cases, 90% is the same as 0%, so what’s the point in putting forth so much effort for no result? Of course, the last 10% is often the hardest.

My friend Mike Concannon often says, “a job worth doing is worth doing well”…a saying I never really internalized until now.

And, of course, Yoda says there is “no try, only do or do not do”. Same thing, I suppose.

And the Taoists say, “do without doing”.

That’s a mind bender.  I think what that means is best explained by my friend Ron who would say, paraphrasing, that you will never stop wanting hot chocolate (no duh!), so the only way to not have it is to want your health more.

Anyhow, the mug is still there, I haven’t has even a sip yet. I’ll keep you posted.

I just took a few days off. And by “off” I mean “completely off the grid”. No phone, no e-mail, no Twitter or Internet or anything. Nada.

It takes me a few days to let go of all these things.  Truth be told, the Internet is part of my life—my entire professional career has been spent working on the web—so it’s like turning part of me off.  But, I think that is healthy for me, and it helps clear my mind to see with more perspective.

Oh, what did I see, you ask?

For one, that the world rolls on just fine.  Online, people keep on tweeting and Facebooking and doing whatever it is that they do.   At the office, emergencies were handled and LOL continued to be had.  At home, the garbage was not taken out, so I will have to pay an extra $5 this week for a second can.  Not exactly what I would call a tragedy.

Another thing I saw was how the pace of everyday life really is stressful. I mean, as a culture, we get seriously wound up with stuff to do.  Deadlines and schedules and goals and deliverables.  I hadn’t even been back 24 hours and I’m already thinking about all the stuff I have to do.

Clean the gutter above the garage that is filled with pine needles.  Take the car to have the bumper repaired.  Go to the doctor to have my sore thumb checked out.  And, of course, take out the garbage.

The list goes on. And on.  The blood pressure rises.  The rat race begins.

I’m going to try to bring a little of that vacation spirit back to my every day life, maintain relaxation for a while.  I’m not entirely sure how, but I have a few ideas that I’m starting with (and, please, share any other ideas you have in the comments).

To begin, I’m going to focus on scheduling my time better.  Instead of constant threads in my mind worrying about when I’m going to get stuff done, I’m going to try putting those things on a calendar.

And, I’m going to try to keep my inbox empty.  Instead of having a worrysome backlog of messages to respond to, I’m going to treat each as a task and move it onto a schedule (or a list of unscheduled things).

I suppose both of these are just really techniques for getting the clutter out of my mind and on to paper (or virtual paper, as it were).  This reminds me of a book I read a few years ago called The Power of Now by Eckhard Tolle.  I don’t remember exactly what it was about, but it had something to do with clearing one’s mind.  I also recall having a conversation with my friend Monica afterward, about the book, and she uttered the phrase “leave your mind alone”.  That seems fitting now.

I have been underwater lately…unable really even to keep up with my e-mail and voice messages…or writing.  But, recently I received a comment that inspired me to pick myself up, brush off the dust, and get back into the game.

Where have I been?  Well, I’ve been working hard; not hard like laying railroad ties, but hard like untangling knots.  It’s really been all-consuming mentally, both at work and at home.  I think I’m seeing some light at the end of the tunnel, though, and that feels pretty good.

It turns out that the comment was spam…it just linked to some debt reduction site.  But, that’s no matter: it’s the inspiration that counts.  It reminded me of that old Grateful Dead line:

Once in awhile you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right.

So, if a spammer can inspire me, what is going to inspire you?

My friend Mike Concannon moved to Philly a few years back, but was in touch recently. Mike is one of those salt-of-the-earth type of guys, a real mensch.

Mike was also one of those guys who was never wanting for a wise, often country-like, aphorism. He must have a million of them, but this one always stuck with me, and I say it to my kids: if a job is worth doing, it’s worth doing right.

Mike writes a great blog at http://astonishyourcustomers.com. Check it out!

Let’s cut to the chase, gang: my cousin Katie has cancer.

It is not the good kind of cancer, if such a thing exists.  It’s the bad kind where your chances are grim.  A year ago she underwent treatment, they gave it some awfully low percentage chance, but luckly it went into remission.  Sadly, less than a year later, it has returned.

Long-story short: Kate needs to find a bone marrow donor.  There is a bone marrow donor registry at Marrow.org, but of the 12 million people currently on the registry not a single person is a match to Katie.

We are tying to round up as many people as possible to register. All you need to do to register is go to http://www.marrow.org.

Do it now, not in 5 minutes, not tonight, not this weekend, but now.  Every day counts and Katie’s life depends on a kind and generous friend or stranger who is willing to make a difference.

You can read more about Katie’s story here: http://www.kancerclub.com

I am writing this post from my iPhone while at an outdoor ed. camp as a chaperone with my son’s school. Needless to say, this is gonna be a short post.

Here’s what’s been on my mind…

Today during one activity were discussing climate change and explaining global warming. It occurred to me that it is unlikely the current generation is really going to fix global warming. We can try, but the forces of short-term and small thinking just feel too powerful to me.

On the other hand, another solution to the problem is to teach our children how to solve the problem, so that it will come naturally to them when they come of age.

For example: when we do science projects with our kids, why aren’t they about solar energy? Wouldn’t it be better for them to know solar inside-and-out than the difference between deciduous and coniferous trees?

Obviously, a lot more nuance to the discussion than that, but an inspiring thought I wanted to get your feedback on. Please…share your thoughts in the comments…I’m trying to make sense of this whole situation.

Hey there…I know, you’re wondering, “Where have you been?”

Well, I’m taking a little break from writing, last week and this, perhaps next week too.  With summer winding down, and fall approaching, I’m just taking some time to clear my head, and plot my next moves.  Don’t panic…I’ll be back!

If you want to catch up, you should contact me (Click here for my contact info), or catch me in person–here’s a list of the conferences I’ll be speaking at over the next few months.

I recently introduced myself to a local tech leader via e-mail, and asked for a meeting.  In part, his response asked:

Tell me about yourself – what are you working on, what interests you, what are you looking to do with your career, how do you think a meeting would help you achieve whatever goals you’ve outlined for yourself?

My reply is below (exactly as I sent it, with a few minor edits):

About myself

Born and raised in Seattle, degree in business (but my career has been a developer and product manager), moved to NYC for a bit in the mid-90’s, moved back, got married, had two kids, now ages 4 and 7, love music and hopelessly addicted to golf.

What am I working on

Currently the CTO at Pet Holdings which is the company behind I Can Has Cheezburger? and Failblog…a lot of focus on really lean starting-up, user-generated content and user-engagement. Previously was part of the launch team at drugstore.com, and before that at Paul Allen’s Starwave, Scott Murphy’s Small World Software, and Seth Godin’s Yoyodyne Entertainment.

What interests me

I like the startup…starting from scratch. Also, I didn’t plan this, but a lot of what I’ve worked on has involved creating tools so that non-technical people can create things online. I come from the school of “simplest thing that could possibly work” and “a lazy solution is a good solution”…I suppose both of those phrases my need some unpacking, so don’t judge them prematurely.

What am I looking to do with my career

I don’t know where my career will lead me next…leaving drugstore.com and going to Cheezburger wasn’t deliberate, but has worked out very nicely because I really enjoy working with content.  I enjoy startups, but I’ve always done it on the product side of things…I’ve been thinking for sometime that I would like to work on the revenue side of the business.  I have indirect experience with it because startups are small, but that’s never been my role, per se.

In addition, and this is a bit different, I have a secret passion to be an interviewer like Charlie Rose or David Letterman. Generally speaking, I’m a curious person, and I think most people have an interesting story to tell, so I really enjoy hearing them. I enjoy studying interviewers to learn how they a conduct good interview, and studying the editing and production. For the last six months or so, I’ve been investigating doing an interview show and publishing it online–technically, it isn’t a challenge, and I feel like I have access to plenty of interesting subjects.  But, doing it as a side-project, I don’t feel like I have the time to produce the quality that I would feel good about, or to promote it effectively, so I haven’t done it yet.

How would a meeting help me achieve my goals

My goal (one of them) is to broaden my network and tell my story because when someone has a problem or opportunity, perhaps I can be the solution. It turns out that in my career I’ve been “that guy” who helps an entrepreneur turn a vision into reality.  Notwithstanding what I said about the revenue side and interviewing, that’s what I bring to the table…I’ve always been the guy who is the operator.  So, from my point of view, I value meeting people because you never know when someone is going to need someone like me.

So, that’s me, but what about  you?  I am always interested in connecting with people, so click here to get in touch.

It’s my birthday today, and yesterday my family came over to celebrate.  As I was waiting for them to arrive, I sat on my front deck for a bit thinking about the past year, and the one coming.

Where my thinking let me is to the phrase I find myself saying nearly every day: the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.  Typically, that phrase is the motivation I use to jump in and get something started, but this time it was different.

On a journey of a thousand miles, there are many steps in between the first and last.  What occurred to me is that sticking with the journey and persevering is just as hard as starting it, if not harder.

Often I’m discouraged because I haven’t arrived at my destination, haven’t achieved my goals.  But, many of the goals we have in life don’t have an actual destination.  I suppose really the discouragement is because I fail to see how the current step is helping me along my way to my destination.  Perhaps the phrase should be the journey of a thousand miles takes a million steps.

My goal for the coming year is look at the glass half-full in this regard: to become better at appreciating how what I’m doing is moving me toward my destination, as opposed to the half-empty view of only looking at how I have not achieved my goals yet.