Nobody Gets Better In General

I send a brief back if it doesn’t say who it’s for. Doesn’t matter how good the idea is or how nice the person asking. It goes back across the desk with one question stapled to the front. Who is this for?

Then I lay in bed at night and tell myself to be better. No brief. No audience. No name anywhere on it.

Better for who? (Whom. The J-school kid in me will not let that one slide.) Present me. Future me. My wife, the girls, the neighbors, the regulars… every one of them pictures a different better.

Better for present me is twenty more minutes under the blanket. Better for future me is the alarm. Better for the neighbors is a lawn that looks like somebody over here is paying attention. Better for my oldest, who is learning to read, is me sitting on my hands while she wrestles a word like dragon to the ground one letter at a time. Better for my evening is me just reading it to her.

All of those are better. None of them are better for the same person, and they all want the same few hours.

That’s the friction. It was never doubt about whether better is worth chasing. It’s five briefs on one desk with no names on them, and the one that wins is whoever’s standing closest. Usually present me, which doesn’t feel like a fulfilling way to live.

Naming the who doesn’t make the friction go away. It tells you who waits. When I opened the bar, a few of the gauges I watch in my own life ran low, and I let them. I knew who the bar was for and who was going to wait on it. Choosing who goes second feels nothing like finding out later who you skipped.

Every homepage you’ve ever bounced off says better somewhere near the top. It’s the emptiest word in marketing until a name gets attached, and the moment one does, so does a list of everyone it isn’t for. That list is what makes the claim believable.

Teams work the same way. Tell a team to do better and they will, for whoever was loudest in the last meeting.

Better is a comparative. It was always half a sentence. Somebody has been finishing it for you.

Stay Positive & We’d All Be Better If We Worked More On Whom For