As an undergraduate, I studied learning. Specifically, I became obsessed with the impact of variable practice on motor learning. Many of the classic studies in the field are done with basketball. Here’s a simple example:

Two groups of people with no prior experience are given the task of shooting hoops. The first group, the control, attempt throws from the free throw line. The variable practice group attempt an equal number of throws from throughout the court.

Understandably, during this initial practice interval the control group performs better. They have more opportunities to attempt the same shot and fewer variables to contend with.

Things get interesting during the subsequent, performance intervals. At the end of the practice session, each group is tasked with shooting baskets from the free throw line. Then, one hour and one week later, both groups again shoot baskets from the free throw line.

During the first performance session, the control group scores more points. But, in an unexpected twist, an hour and a week later, the variable practice group – those with less experience shooting free throws! – score substantially more points.

The people who practiced shooting baskets from a wide range of angles have better retention of the skill.

Even more interesting, when both groups are tasked with shooting baskets a week later from somewhere else on the court – somewhere that neither group attempted previously – the variable practice group again performs substantially better.

Variable practice results in better skill retention and skill transfer.

Don’t assess learning during practice

The problem is that when you and I are casually shooting hoops, even if we are “just practicing,” we want to score points.

We assess ourselves by how well we perform while we are learning.

When I’m undertaking a new project, I remind myself to distinguish between learning and performance. In the three months learning up to Responsive Conference 2024, the goal was to sell tickets to the conference – a performance interval. Over the next three months, I’m re-focusing on diet. This is a learning phase, which entails study, research, and non-concrete outcomes.

Learning is about the messy middle. It means learning to shoot basketball while being willing to miss more shots than you make because you are practicing.

The next time you are practicing a new skill or looking to refine an existing one, remind yourself whether this is a practice or performance phase of learning.

Until next week,
Robin

I hit a point – ten meetings or a hundred email into my day – where anything I try feels like failure.

I can’t think clearly enough even to decide what to do next. That’s past time to do something different.

When my best friend feels stuck she has trained herself to take some kind of action. Even if it is action in the opposite direction from the outcome she wants, action begets action.

You can course correct once you’ve begun. But without that initial impetus to action, you’ll remain stuck and unproductive.

Analysis paralysis

I asked ChatGPT about this phenomenon, and it came back to me with “analysis paralysis.” I haven’t thought of that phrase in a decade.

In trying to decide what course of action to take, you follow none of them and remain stuck.

An ineffective approach

When I was in my early twenties and would get stuck, I’d sometimes just lie down for an hour in a fugue state, in a state of overwhelm. Eventually, it would pass and I’d be able to figure out some path forward.

Deeply not fun, but also a pretty ineffective approach!

Don’t be strategic

Perhaps because I grew up in a house full of runners, my first impulse has always been physical movement. Every day at 2pm, I go to the gym or for a run.

You don’t need a strategic solution to an intellectual problem, just a change of pace.

Some physical action

In my family, everyone had a physical practice. By the time I was twenty, “go for a run” was as much a metaphor as a physical act.

Step outside and go for a walk or a run. Anything physical through space can help.

Phone a friend

I started using this phrase decades ago – so much so that is now part of my vocabulary. When I feel stuck or low, I phone a friend.

I used to feel bad asking somebody else for help. Like asking a stranger for directions, I now regard it as a sign of strength.

Just do something

Many of my emotional shortcuts are physical, but when you are stuck the solution is to take some action.

Even activity in precisely the wrong direction begets more action. It is easier to course correct while in motion. Get out of your rut, and move.

Until next week,
Robin

In the final weeks leading up to Responsive Conference, I hit an impasse.

Since the beginning of 2024, I’ve written a weekly article about selling.

I love sales, selling, and persuasion.

But I was doing a lot of sales. In those final weeks, I was taking 15 minute calls 10 hours a day in order to sell tickets to the conference.

And I lost interest in writing about sales.

I didn’t lose interest in the discipline required to get into a cold plunge every morning. Or in how to train my dog. Or in negotiating international travel with family.

I lost interest in cold call scripts, what sales people do wrong, or talking about the brute force approach of selling tickets to a conference – as incredible as Responsive Conference 2024 turned out to be!

Why selling?

Sales is tactical and measurable. Success is binary, determined by whether someone buys.

Nine months ago I wrote an article titled “Selling Snafu” and listed out the reasons that I was writing a newsletter about sales. Today, I wanted to revisit those reasons.

Support the people you love

One of the proudest moments of my adult life came when my father started exercising. Through gentle persuasion, my father changed his behavior.

To change behavior for yourself or someone you love, know what kind of reinforcement what works for them.

Each of us benefits from a mix of positive and negative reinforcement, from the carrot and stick. As I’ve told all my athletic training partners and many ex-girlfriends, if you want me to change, praise me. Give me positive reinforcement, and I’ll jump through hoops. Berate me and I shut down.

This is a form of selling, but better described as behavior change.

Authentic persuasion

Whether as a kid selling pumpkins or in negotiating complex family dynamics, I have always been fascinated by the intersection of persuasion, authenticity, and human psychology.

Unfortunately, sales has come to mean inauthentic persuasion. We learn to pressure and bully people into doing things that they otherwise don’t want to do.

I’m interested in authentic persuasion; in aligning someone else’s interests with my own and providing them a solution to accomplish their aims.

Courage to ask

Asking for what you want is hard. As a result, even those who did it well, usually do so with pressure and urgency. Most of the rest of us just don’t ask!

I set out to write about selling because most people I know and love would benefit from developing the courage to advocate for what they want.

When those of us who are nervous to advocate begin to do so – when we are courageous – the benefits are enormous.

What is selling?

As a result of the thousands of conversations between June and September, we sold out Responsive Conference. The event was a big success.

But I’m mostly uninterested in tactics for cold calling or the precise scripts needed to close a deal.

Snafu is still a newsletter about selling, but with a slight modification. This newsletter is about changing the behavior of a single individual – yourself, someone you love, a specific consumer, or within your organization.

It turns out that selling is just another way to say behavior change.

Until next week
Robin

Like most entrepreneurs I have the unfortunate habit of thinking that the grass is greener on the other side.

In just the last decade, I have started and then quit a lot of businesses:

• Started and then left behind a business working with kids with autism
• Started Robin’s Cafe, which I sold on Craigslist
• Started a conference about dance and behavior change, which I discontinued
• Started Responsive Conference, which I paused due to the pandemic, and then brought back this year
• Started my agency Zander Media​

(There are many more, but you get the idea.)

Compounding

We take for granted that money compounds. The more you have, the easier it is to make.

Relationships also compound. The longer we work with a client at Zander Media, the better the work and those relationships become.

To describe the opposite, Alex Hormozi uses the metaphor of the “woman in the red dress.” He’s referencing an artificial attraction in The Matrix, which the main character Neo has to learn to avoid at his peril. Things that look appealing may, in fact, try to kill you!

Narrow your focus

I’ve come to realize that going deeper down a specific path is healthier and more lucrative than jumping around.

In our first year of Zander Media, did perhaps $100,000 in gross revenue. Within two years, we 10x our revenue. Here’s a video about the tactic I used to accomplish that.

When your business has a narrow focus, the entire company gets practice refining its processes. Employees get practice doing the same thing, over and over again. Customers know what to expect. The entire system improves. Here’s an article about my mistakes doing the opposite at Zander Media.

But compounding isn’t just about dollars, relationships, or process improvement. It applies to every area of behavior change.

If there’s one lesson I could offer myself ten years ago, it would be “go deeper.”

Homework

Write out all of the projects you are in the midst of right now.

Or, if that isn’t a lot list, all of the things you’ve started and stopped in the last three months.

This exercise, which I do at least quarterly, is one way to assess when you’ve spread yourself too thin and where you might narrow your focus.

Until next week,
Robin

A few weeks ago, someone told me I was the most disciplined person she knows. That feedback was disconcerting because, growing up, I was often told that I lacked discipline.

I’ve never been particularly good at forcing myself to do things that I don’t want to do, which is how I’d always defined discipline.

Discipline isn’t hard

Over time, I’ve come to see this definition as nonsensical. The things I’m told requite discipline are things that I want to do.

I want to exercise every day.
I want to get into the cold plunge every day.
I only ever do things that I want to do. Otherwise, I wouldn’t do so.

It has taken a while, but I’ve come to the conclusion that when most people say “discipline” then mean doing things that look hard to them, and doing them with routine consistency.

When people hear that I ate three ingredients for 5 months they’re flabbergasted.

The first question is “What were the three ingredients?” The second is “Didn’t you get tired of the same meal?”

Once I decided, very clearly, that I was going to eat that simple diet, I wasn’t even tempted by ice cream or peanut butter.

Nothing is particularly hard when I’ve decided that I want to attempt it. Hard things are only hard when we are conflicted or not sure we’re ready to commit.

Take personal responsibility

Discipline is lauded, but the idea isn’t well defined.

Ownership – taking personal responsibility – is a better way to address the same idea.

Each of us is only doing what we want to do at any time. The path forward towards anything – great health, wealth, relationships, or just sitting in very cold water – requires recognizing what we want, knowing why, and then taking baby steps towards that desired outcome.

Getting started is the hard part

Doing difficult things isn’t hard. Getting started doing difficult things is.

I’ll procrastinate for hours getting into my cold plunge. By comparison, the difference between 1 second and 30 seconds sitting in frigid water is easy.

Now that I’ve recognized this resistance in my cold plunge routine, I’m looking for that same procrastination and avoidance elsewhere.

It is a useful cue when we notice that at the provocation we’ll stop doing something that we’ve otherwise deemed important.

Discipline and disciple share the same root

I was discussing the idea of discipline with colleague Marie Szuts recently, when she casually pointed out that “discipline” shares the same root as “disciple”.

Discipline originates from the Latin word “discipulus” which means student or learner.

When we remove the more modern punitive quality of the word, we’re left with discipline as something closer to “practice.”

The 51% philosophy of behavior

A lot of people I know subscribe to a theory of percentages of behavior.

A friend of mine will say that he both wants to do something and doesn’t. If 51% of him wants to do something, thus he does it.

It’s convenient to say that I both want to do something and don’t want to do something. But it is also inaccurate!

I can only do something or not do something.

I either get into the cold plunge or I do not.
I either eat that pint of ice cream or I do not.

A continuum of behavior doesn’t exist.

Personal responsibility

We don’t have good language to describe personal responsibility.

There’s no good language – at least in English – to describe that state where I don’t want to get in the cold plunge, but I’ve decided that I’m going to do so, thus I actually do want to, so I go ahead and get in anyway.

That’s what we’re talking about. Taking personal responsibility for our behavior and our actions.

What am I avoiding?

Currently, I’m noticing what I’m avoiding.

Just like I avoid getting in the cold plunge in the morning, the mark of success is not just whether I get in but how quickly I do so. Am I avoiding this behavior?

Homework

When I have kids I don’t want to teach them about discipline in the way it was drilled into me. Instead I want them to feel good for having done hard things.

• The feeling of a runner’s high after a 5-mile run.
• The feeling of your brain having been stretched after writing an essay.
• When you sit and read a compelling book that challenges you to think about something differently.

My homework, then, is to do something that you “don’t want to do” and to do it with attention.

• Go for a walk and notice how difficult it is
• Eat very differently for one meal than you usually do, and notice how to feel afterwards
• Take a cold shower, instead of a hot one.

Ultimately, I can’t prescribe something “difficult” for you because it depends on your baseline. (A cold shower isn’t hard for me anymore, even though my cold plunge still is.)

The key is to notice how you feel before you engage in this behavior. Notice your temptation to avoid that behavior, and then how you feel afterwards.

Until next week,
Robin

When I first read the Responsive Org Manifesto in 2015 I liked it because it was not prescriptive.

The manifesto does not say that if you pull levers in a particular order you will be able to build a perfect organization. Instead, it outlines the tensions that every organization has to balance.

• The right amount of experimentation.
• A balance between privacy and transparency.
• Managing the tension between profit and purpose.

These are tensions that every organization has to contend with. There is no one size fits all.

And that’s why we had a very diverse array of speakers at Responsive Conference.

Over two days, some of our presenters included:

• Gayle Karen Young Whyte about coherence as a strategic capability.
• Jenny Sauer Klein about how to design great offsites.
• The Chief Information Officer at UCSF about change within enterprise.
• We sat with Carine Kanimba and V-Vonne Hutchinson as they talked about genocide and hope.
• I interviewed a journalist about cults!
• And even live music by a children’s orchestral group!

(Check out all of our presenters here.)

But Responsive Conference isn’t just about speakers on stage.

It isn’t even about the bookstore, puppies, popsicles, and an immersive venue.

Responsive Conference is about the people who attend – and the tactics, tools, stories and connections that they take back to their organizations.

The grass is always greener

Throughout a decade as an entrepreneur, I’ve jumped between projects. I’ve started:

• A cafe in San Francisco
• A conference about work
• A media agency

We ran Responsive Conference in the Bay Area in 2016. Then I moved it to New York City, and then to Las Vegas.

Running a conference is hard work, but running a conference in a different city every year is plain ridiculous.

The sign of a good leader

On Sept. 18th, we hosted a dinner with author Cat Bohannon and an amazing local chef named Romney Steele. When Cat brought Romney up to thank her for what was an incredible meal, Romney immediately began acknowledging her staff.

In an industry with a notoriously high turnover, Romney specifically thanked two of her employees, who were behind the counter and have been with her for decades years. And her first restaurant manager, who no longer works for her, but came in last night to help with dinner!

That’s the sign of a great leader.

In business, and in life, relationships compound.

When you stay the course and go deeper, things get better and better.

Relationships compound

My best friend and I have been close for 15 years. We talk every day.

Through the highs and lows, our friendship just keeps getting better. The results compound.

Even though Responsive Conference 2024 was our first work project together, my co-producer Marie Szuts and I have known each other for a decade. My other co-producer, Nicole Piechowski, and I met on the dance floor, and have worked together, on and off, since 2017.

Jonathan Kofahl and I have been making videos since before there was a Zander Media. He filmed an event I produced in 2017, and we’ve been making videos together ever since.

Take action

At Responsive Conference 2018, we had Simon Lowden, the global CMO of PepsiCo on stage. At the time, Pepsi was undergoing a massive restructuring and they were even using the word “responsive” internally to describe their change efforts.

During a Q+A at the end of their session, someone in the audience asked Simon and the PepsiCo team a question:

Simon turned to the fellow and said:

It might sound a bit heartless, but I actually think it was the opposite. If want to change but are stymied, look elsewhere.

Your homework

Relationships get better over time – in business and in life. But what does that mean in practice?

It means putting in the time and effort.
It means following up again, even when you are tired or don’t really feel like it.

That person you met yesterday and said you’d email?
Follow up with them.

The person you had drinks with at an event?
Send them a message on LinkedIn or DM them on Instagram.

Put in the extra effort to keep those relationships alive.

Be the change

I exhorted attendees of Responsive Conference at the beginning of the conference to jump in fully.
To look for ideas, practices, people that you could learn from.

To create the companies, organizations, and work life you want, you have to take action throughout your daily lives.

As my colleague Marie Szuts said to me a few days ago: “Be the fucking change you want to see in the world.”

Until next week,
Robin

I have a philosophy of addiction. I’ve never done drugs, been addicted to porn or video games, or struggled with alcohol or cigarettes. But I am prone to addiction.

My grandfather was an alcoholic. My uncle died of alcohol and pills.

The things that I am addicted to most people don’t think about (sugar) or consider healthy (exercise, fasting).

Over the last decade, I’ve developed a philosophy of addiction – pursue things that are hard, but leave you feeling good afterwards.

By contrast, most of what we define as addictions are easy to do, but leave you feeling bad afterwards. Nicotine, alcohol, heroin, porn. They feel good in the moment, but have consequences afterwards.

That’s my cue of things to avoid.

But there’s another category that is difficult to do while you are in the midst of it, but leaves you feeling good afterwards. These are what I term my “healthy addictions.”

Here are few of my vices:

• 2 minutes of cold plunging at 39 degrees each morning
• 2 hours of intense exercise every day
• 5 days of water-only fasting twice a year

Of course, the term “healthy addiction” is a misnomer. Just like alcohol or sugar aren’t necessarily harmful in small doses, exercise or fasting aren’t healthy in the extreme.

But these healthy addictions are also self-limiting. Sit in a very cold plunge for 2 minutes, and a third minute is more difficult. Day 6 of a water-only fast is more difficult than Day 3. The more you do, the harder it becomes to keep doing the activity.

Homework

So, that’s my prescription. Do something hard that leaves you feeling good afterwards.

It is that simple.
And it is that difficult.

Until next week,
Robin

Two months ago I moved into a new house and promptly bought myself something that I have been lusting after for at least 3 years – a commercial cold plunge.

I grew up jumping into ice covered lakes in the High Sierra. (There’s a infamous story in my family where, at 5 years old, I didn’t jump into an ice covered lake. I’ve been doing penance ever since.)

In 2017, I built a homemade chest freezer cold plunge. The problem with using a chest freezer – beyond the slight chance of electrocution – is keeping the water cold, clean, and circulating.

So when I moved into my new house and extensive backyard, I splurged.

I’ve noticed a lot of positive benefits from sitting in freezing cold water for a few minutes every day:

• It’s the best (i.e. most abrupt) way to wake up in the morning.
• I feel energized for several hours afterwards.
• Cold plunging is good for my physique.
• But there’s one unexpected thing about cold plunge that I’m just starting to explore, and that’s my penchant to avoid it.

I’ve sat in my tub of freezing cold water for at least a few seconds every single day for two months. My daily average is two minutes at 39°.

But I will still go to extraordinarily great lengths to avoid the cold water each morning!

Some mornings I will procrastinate for 90 minutes; I’ll make tea, check email, deal with an urgent work thing, listen to a podcast. Anything to avoid the freezing cold water.

I now judge the efficiency of my day, and my wellbeing in general, by how quickly I get into the cold plunge in the morning.

Homework: What are you avoiding?

I’ve begun noticing other things that I’m avoiding.

The mark of success is not just whether I get into my cold plunge but how much I procrastinate beforehand. Whether I’m avoiding the behavior.

My homework, then, is to do something that you “don’t want to do” and to do it with attention.

• Go for a hard walk and notice how difficult it is.
• Eat very differently for one meal than you usually do, and notice how to feel afterwards.
• Take a cold shower, instead of a hot one.

Ultimately, I can’t prescribe something “difficult” for you because it depends on your baseline. (A cold shower isn’t hard for me anymore.)

The key is to notice how you feel before you engage in this difficult behavior. Notice your temptation to avoid that behavior, and then how you feel after you’ve done so.

Until next week,
Robin

In the early 1970s, Bill Bowerman, the legendary track and field coach and co-founder of Nike, was determined to improve his athlete’s performance.

Frustrated with the heavy running shoes of that era, Bowerman wanted lightweight shoes with better traction.

One morning during breakfast, Bowerman looked at the waffle iron on the kitchen table and he realized that the waffle iron grid pattern could be a solution for his shoe design.

Bowerman poured urethane into his wife’s waffle iron and created the first prototype of the waffle sole.

Despite several ruined waffle irons and a lot of noxious fumes, Bowerman refined his technique and materials until he created a new and effective shoe design.

The Nike Waffle Trainer, introduced in 1974, quickly became a revolutionary piece of athletic footwear and solidified Nike’s reputation as a running company.

​Shoe Dog by Phil Knight is full of these short anecdotes about both business or athletic performance.

At innumerable points for decades, the company is stuck, Phil Knight or one of his colleagues try something new, and after a lot of anguish something works and the company makes a giant leap forward.

That is how creativity works! You encounter a problem. You make little progress for what feels like forever. And then, in a moment, everything changes.

But, of course, things don’t change in a moment.

What we don’t see from the outside is the myriad steps and the gradual progress along the way.

Homework

Just because other people do things a certain way, doesn’t mean that’s the only way that task or project has to be done.

When people say “that’s how things are” it doesn’t mean that something has to be done that way. If the status quo doesn’t suit you, listen to your intuition.

One commonly held belief that I don’t believe is that “change is hard.”

What’s one for you?

Until next week,
Robin

A well-known businessman recently started offering workshops. My Facebook feed has been flooded with advertisements.

I attend business workshops, but more than the specifics, I was interested in their process of running, collecting my contact information, and the script they would use to persuade me to buy.

The system worked flawlessly until I got on the phone call with the salesman.

He texted me in advance of the call, even when I asked him not to. When I told him on the call that I would not be purchasing that day his first question was, “Why not?” followed closely by “What concerns do you have that would prevent you from buying today?”

He was pushy. Less interested in answering my questions than in getting me to buy.

Contrast this example – which exemplifies why we all hate salespeople – to my dating life, where I can be too hesitant.

A awkward moment in my dating life

Growing up my mother taught me to be very sensitive to the impact I was having on other people – and especially on women.

A beautiful woman working out in my gym recently. She was barefoot and doing a lot of uncommon movement – ring dips, body isolations. My kind of athlete.

In a sequence that was uncomfortably similar to third grade, I looked at her, then away. She looked at me, and then away. We smiled slightly, but didn’t say hello. When she left twenty minutes later, I considered chasing after her. But the moment had passed.

Unlike in business or in my athletic life, I still have a lot of fear in dating. I do approach strangers, but I’m also afraid that someone will take a friendly “hello” the wrong way.

The two extremes of selling

There are two extremes of selling. A lot of people are hesitant even to ask for fear of being too demanding. Most of us don’t want to pressure people into things.

On the opposite extreme, a lot of salesmen won’t take no for an answer. They don’t ask; they demand.

I want to be comfortable approaching a stranger and asking her out to coffee. I will also fight to live in a world where salespeople aren’t pushy and the women in my life don’t have to worry about men harassing them.

Follow your fear

I’ve often said that “Fear is my north star.” When I notice that I’m avoiding something, I go towards it.

In selling, you have to get used to being uncomfortable. That’s the job.

In that moment in the gym I was afraid, and I didn’t act. By contrast, that salesman on the phone call wasn’t afraid of being pushy.

My opportunity in dating is to say hello even when I’m nervous. That salesman might make more sales if he was more sensitive.

The only way to improve is by facing your fear. You have to take a step towards something that currently feel difficult. The definition of courage is action in the face of fear. So maybe all of us would benefit by attending to what we’re afraid of, and then doing more of that.

Until next week,
Robin