A surprising discussion about why members of SEAL teams need to learn public speaking

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At the Boise Public Library I found a 2025 book by Mike Hayes titled Mission Driven: The path to a life of purpose. Mike was former commanding officer of SEAL Team Two. There is a preview at Google Books. Chapter Three discusses The Meta-Skills That Matter, which are:

 

META-SKILL 1: Understand and Create Value

META-SKILL 2: Know How to Influence Others

META-SKILL 3: Never Stop Learning

 

His discussion of how to influence others (starting on page 81) describes how important public speaking is:

 

“Influencing others is a vitally important meta-skill to have. When you can influence the behavior of the people around you, you become someone who can get things done for the mission you’re pursuing, organizational or personal. When you understand what motivates someone, you can drive their behavior to help you achieve your goals.

 

.…Embedded within this lesson are three points. One is about political capital. When you understand what motivates someone, you can choose what to ask of them, and how to ask it. You can get people to want to do something rather than having to convince them or, if you’re in a position to do so, to force them.

 

.…The second point is about challenging the status quo. When you understand what drives people, you can push for change in constructive ways.

 

….The third point here is about communication. Communication is about more than the concrete outputs we typically associate with people who work in a communications role – website content, white papers, etc. Communication is about being able to effectively transmit your thinking process. And it’s a critical meta-skill no matter your job. To wit: If asked to list the kinds of skills a SEAL needs, most people would land on a few predictable answers – strength, agility, calm inrensity, focus. Which is why my teams were sometimes confused when I’d sit them down on a day when the weather was keeping us from training and I’d give each SEAL a topic. ‘Take the next two minutes to prepare a two-minute speech on this subject,’ I’d say.

 

‘Public speaking?’ they would ask, incredulous. Why did they need to work on public speaking? It made no sense to some of them, until I explained it on two levels. First, at some point all SEALs will have to represent themselves and their unit to people in the community or to leaders we might have to interact with. Just like they needed negotiation skills, they also needed to be able to express themselves well, in case I or another leader was unavailable and the responsibility fell to them. Second, becoming a better speaker is really about becoming a better thinker, organizing thoughts and defining goals – and that is a skill that transfers to everything we do.

 

The best communicators have a tightness of thought. They set goals at the beginning of a meeting, to put everyone on the same page. They stay focused on the mission. They avoid needlessly wasting other people’s time. We’ve all been in rooms where someone starts vacuuming up attention needlessly by asking a question that either never gets to the question mark or is being asked for a self-indulgent purpose rather than focused on the end value. This is a communication problem (also sometimes an attitude problem, another meta-skill we’ll look at in a moment), and if you are the one being stared at by a bunch of people who feel like you’re wasting their time, you’re doing something wrong. There’s an age-old saying in the SEAL Teams, where platoons are made up of sixteen men: ‘When fifteen men are wrong, look in the mirror.’ It may well be that you are failing to influence in a positive, effective way.

 

In my public speaking exercise, all the SEALs listening gave feedback to the presenters, just like we did after missions. The feedback was another way to make us all better.”  

 

This book has two sections, on The Long Game and The Short Game, with the following chapters and starting page numbers:

 

THE LONG GAME

CHAPTER 1: Who, Not What You Want to Be  15

CHAPTER 2: Defining Success  43

CHAPTER 3: The Meta-Skills That Matter  69

CHAPTER 4: Helping Others Helps Us More  97

CHAPTER 5: Plans Will Always Change  119  

 

THE SHORT GAME

CHAPTER 6: Getting Comfortable Making Decisions  143

CHAPTER 7: Mission Driven in the Ways We Spend Our Time  161

CHAPTER 8: Mission Driven in Our Relationships  189

CHAPTER 9: Mission Driven through the Stages of Life  207

CHAPTER 10: Mission Driven to Change the World  221

 

The insignia for SEAL TEAM 2 came from Wikimedia Commons.

 

 

A blog post from Seth Godin about having or doing a good job

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A simple graphic like a 2x2 table can explain something more clearly than lots of words. There is a post by Seth Godin on July 21, 2026 at Seth’s Blog titled The Having/Doing job gap. His six-paragraph post is neither concise nor clear. I have described things more clearly, as shown above, via a 2x2 table with four quadrants. On January 19, 2024 I blogged about The joy of 2x2 tables, or charts, or matrixes.

 

At the upper left is when you don’t have a good job but still do a good job, which is better than expected and thus is a gap. At the lower right is another gap when you have a good job but don’t do a good job, and need to improve.

 

At the lower left is when you neither have nor do a good job, which is the worst situation. Finally, at the upper right, is when you both have a good job and do a good job, which is the very best situation and a success.

 

Seth’s long, full post is as follows:

 

“It’s a dance between workers, bosses, and the market.

 

The most stable quadrant happens when a thoughtful and consistent boss hires the right person, pays them fairly, creates positive working conditions and useful training. In return, the company gets extraordinary performance. That’s someone doing a good job who also has a good job.

 

A particularly unstable quadrant is the worker who gets all of the above, but because of culture, choice, or lack of enrollment doesn’t do a good job. That mismatch could last for a while, but it’s shaky.

 

Consider for a moment the boss who takes advantage of people (and the system) by creating lousy conditions and paying too little but still manages to enforce output that they consider acceptable. Once workers realize that they don’t have a good job, they leave, if the culture and economy permit it. Government is critical in helping people doing a good job get unstuck once they realize they don’t have a good job.

 

And the last quadrant is all too common: you don’t have a good job and you don’t do a good job. It’s not clear which came first, but they often go together.

 

Everyone deserves to have a good job. And smart bosses show up to help make that possible.”

 

 

He went from being a government speechwriter to a part-time school bus driver

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is an article by Steven Miller at ProRhetoric on July 21, 2026 titled From Government Speechwriter to School Bus Driver. He spent 72 weeks searching for another job, and then changed his definition for success:

 

 “So, I am doing something different. Very different. I will soon be a school bus driver for my local school district.

 I am happy about and relieved by this because I know that God has led and directed me to this place. Both the place of the bus driver role, but, more importantly, to a place of contentment about it.

 Going from a full-time executive speechwriter position to a part-time school bus driver is tough financially; no doubt about that. The good thing is that this role give me the time to pursue and do the work that I am now confident is my true calling in life. To help churches and ministries with their organization and leadership communication questions and challenges. Those organizations cannot afford to have full-time communications staff. My current role allows me to help those leaders and organizations with time and cost that is affordable for them and for me.”

 A school bus image came from Wikimedia Commons.

 

 

A Pearls Before Swine comic about how effort is the key to success

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stephan Pastis’s Pearls Before Swine comic strip has a gray donkey called the Great Wise Ass who sits atop a hill and dispenses sage advice. His July 24, 2026 comic has this dialogue:

 

Pig:                         Oh, Great Wise Ass, what is the key

                                to success?

 

Great Wise Ass:   Effort.

 

Pig:                         Nooooooooo…

 

Pig:                         If you had said ‘luck’ I could have kept 

                                sleeping in.

 

On July 16, 2025 I had blogged about How to become smart according to a Pearls Before Swine comic.

 

 

Joy is the most enjoyable path to learning

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is a useful 2024 book by David Novak titled How Leaders Learn: Master the habits of the world’s most successful people. Google Books has a preview of its first sixty pages and six chapters.

 

On page 143 David says that:

 

“Joy is our source of purpose, passion, mission – and the most enjoyable path to learning.

 

Of course, pursuing your joy requires that you know where to find it in your life and work. Not many people consider what makes them happiest, beyond things that aren’t necessarily within their control. When I wrote Take Charge of You with sports performance coach Jason Goldsmith, we tackled this question at the start. If you’re going to coach yourself to success, you need to know what you’re coaching yourself toward. We suggested people start by mining their experiences for joy blockers (we’re a bit better at remembering negatives) and then shift and search for their joy builders.

 

Try asking yourself this: What’s getting in the way of my joy? If you’re not sure, think back to some of your worst days, or a job that frustrated you or made you miserable or unfulfilled. What made it so difficult for you? Be as specific as possible. Did you want to be in a different role? Was there one specific thing that you were required to do that you dreaded doing? Was there a person or team you had to work with that brought you down?

 

I’m sure you can think of examples. We all hate our jobs sometimes. Even if you can think of examples, though, you may never have deeply reflected or logically analyzed why you were unhappy in a particular situation or environment.

 

I wish I could give a good example of this kind of reflection from my own life, but I’ve rarely felt that way. And I don’t think most active learners have much experience with it either, at least not for long. When active learners find themselves in a situation that’s too full of their joy blockers, they learn their way out of it or they learn their way around the blockers fast. They know if they don’t, they’ll stagnate. They also know that just because a job or situation doesn’t come preloaded with joy builders doesn’t mean it’s the wrong choice. It just means it’s up to them to find a way around the blockers.

 

….What are your joy builders? And how can you pursue them? Think about some of your best days or jobs – times when you felt especially purposeful, powerful, optimistic, and joyful. What was happening? What were you doing? Who were you doing it with? What specific things made you feel happy, excited, or energized? Try looking at your joy blocker examples and asking, What would have made me happier in those situations?”

 

My cartoon was assembled using a brick wall and stairs from OpenClipArt.  

 

 

A very useful recent book by George Newman about how great ideas happen

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is a very useful 2026 book by George Newman titled How Great Ideas Happen: The hidden steps behind breakthrough success. An article by George Newman at the NextBigIdeaClub in January 27, 2026 titled The Surprisingly Simple Formula Behind Breakthrough Ideas also discussed it. There are a dozen chapters in the book, three each in four parts:

 

Part 1 - Surveying Where to Search for Ideas

Chapter 1: Burn the Cabin Down

Chapter 2: Originality Ostriches

Chapter 3: Bottoms Up!

 

Part II - Griddings: Organizing Your Search

Chapter 4: The Guiding Question

Chapter 5: Think Inside the Box

Chapter 6: Transplanting

 

Part III - Digging: Unearthing Promising Ideas

Chapter 7: More Is More

Chapter 8: Search Far and Wide

Chapter 9: The Spark

 

Part IV – Sifting: Choosing Which Ideas to Pursue

Chapter 10: Create By Subtracting

Chapter 11: How Ideas Feel

Chapter 12: The Learning Curve

 

On page 63 (as shown above) he says that:

 

“…the most successful creatives I know have a striking thing in common: They have developed a knowledge funnel. They know a lot about one or two things and a little about a lot of things. But more than just that, they are highly adept at relating those foreign ideas back to their own expertise. Great visual artists will take concepts from philosophy or science and translate them into their preferred medium. Great musicians can take ideas from completely different musical genres or totally different arts and connect those ideas back to their own instrument. Great chefs might find inspiration from ideas totally unrelated to food or cooking. And some of the most successful scientists I know can take a concept from some distant field, translate it into the language of their own expertise, and see the implications for a problem they are working on.”

 

In Chapter 4 on page 83 he defines:

 

“THE FOUR FEATURES OF A GUIDING QUESTION

 

SPECIFIC: It is phrased in a way that allows you

  to narrow in on a particular niche area.

OPEN-ENDED: It encourages multiple answers

  rather than a single correct one.

MOTIVATING: It engages curiosity and

  motivates you to delve deeper.

MEASURABLE: It has measurable outcomes

  to determine if you’re on the right path.”

 

In his Conclusion: Getting Unstuck on page 243 he describes three roadblocks:

 

Roadblock #1: You haven’t done enough work up front

Roadblock #2: You’ve settled on an idea too early.

Roadblock #3: You’ve fallen in love with an idea, not the process.

 

And on Page 245 he describes The Creative Explorer’s Toolkit:

 

Don’t be an Originality Ostrich.

Expand Your Influences.

Be a Problem Finder.

Embrace the Constraints.

Keep Digging.

Explore the Uncomfortable Ideas.

Think about Floating a Raft (versus Building a Tower).

Invite Others In.

 

My funnel was adapted from a miniature image at Wikimedia Commons.

 

What experts know that you don’t

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is a useful ten-minute YouTube video by Jim Cathcart on May 4, 2025 titled What Top 1% Experts Know That You Don’t. He shows a sketchy flipchart with Do (Doing) on the horizontal axis and Know (Knowing) on the vertical axis. And he mentions both can either be low or high.

 

We can divide things into a 2x2 table, which I have redrawn as a slick color version using PowerPoint, as is shown above. If both what you Know and what you Do is low, then you just are a Passenger (someone sitting in the back of the airplane). If what you Know is high but what you Do is low, then you are a Critic. If what you Know is low and what you Do is high, then now you are a Competitor. Finally, if both what you Know and what you Do is high, then you are a Leader (an Expert).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Furthermore, as shown above, there are six levels of expertise (in increasing order):

 

Competent

Excellent

Expert

Leading Authority

Celebrity

Star

 

 

A brief football story by coach Bill Belichick about an unintentional gesture

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have been skimming therough the 2025 book by Bill Belichick titled The Art of Winning: Lessons from my life in football. A great brief story from it is on page 129 (and in Google Books):

 

“Carl Banks was a player who prepared at an elite level. Honestly, I had trouble keeping up with both Carl and Tom – they were very detailed in their preparation. Carl had the best key I had ever seen. When I was defensive coordinator for the Giants he found a tip on John Spagnola, who played tight end for the Eagles in the mid-eighties. Carl studied the stance of Spagnola and discovered that, incredibly, Spagnola wiggled his fingers on running plays and did not wiggle them on passes. When Banks told me about this, I thought it was a joke. It was not. I looked at all the end zone film and the key held up. I couldn’t believe it. After the first series of each game against the Eagles, Carl would come off the field with a big smile, saying, ‘He’s still doing it.’ Carl had incredible recall and would come into our Tuesday meetings armed with information: stats from every game our opponent had played that year (not to mention previous years) or memory of a play from ten weeks ago that he wanted us to have a game plan for.”  

 

In poker that sort of gesture is called a Tell.

 

The cartoon was adapted from this one at Wikimedia Commons.

 

 

Become a success by stacking your talents or skills

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is a post by Bo Campbell at the Davidson Blog in 2018 titled Talent stacking – the key to standing out from the crowd. Bo explained that:

 

“The term ‘talent stack’ was coined by cartoonist Scott Adams – best known as the creator of the Dilbert Cartoon series – to describe developing a variety of skills which combine to make someone a sought-after commodity. Adams describes his own talent stack [as shown above] in the following terms:

 

‘I am a famous syndicated cartoonist who doesn’t have much artistic talent, and I’ve never taken a college-level writing class. But few people are good at both drawing and writing. When you add in my ordinary business skills, my strong work ethic, my risk tolerance, and my reasonably good sense of humour, I’m fairly unique.’ ”

 

Success may not continue unabated. The Wikipedia page about Scott Adams notes that in 2023 he was dropped by both his book publisher and his comic strip syndicator.

 

There is an article by Darius Foroux on November 6, 2018 titled Skill Stacking: A Practical Strategy to Achieve Career Success. A second article by Thomas Oppong at The Ladders on January 15, 2020 is titled Skill stacking: Instead of mastering one skill, build a skill set. And there is a 2020 book by Steven West titled Skill Stacking: A practical approach to life, beat the competition and do what you love. And there is a post by Naressa Kahn at the Mindvalley Blog on February 16, 2025 titled How skill stacking can future-proof your career and make you indispensable.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My stack of skills (shown above) includes writing magazine articles and reports, speaking in public, creating graphics for presentations, telling stories, and blogging. I had editing experience with reviewing magazine articles for both the materials science magazine Metallurgical Transactions and the corrosion engineering magazine Materials Performance.

 

An interesting 2024 book by Mark Edwards about storytelling - Best Story Wins

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Via interlibrary loan from the Twin Falls Public Library, I got and am enjoying reading the 2024 book by Mark Edwards titled Best Story Wins: Storytelling for business success. The biography from his publisher says that:

 

“Mark Edwards has two parallel careers—as a journalist and as a trainer/life coach. As a journalist he began his career writing in magazines, including GQ, Esquire, and Blitz. For the past twenty-five years his work has appeared virtually every week in the London Sunday Times, and for twelve of those years he was the paper's chief pop music critic. As a coach and trainer, he works with individuals to help them live with more purpose and meaning.”

 

Chapter 4 of Best Story Wins is titled What gets in the way of good storytelling? He says one problem come from a default in PowerPoint.  The slide template just says to: Click to add title.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But what we really want on a slide instead is a storytelling headline, as described above. That’s a good way to think about it. An even better way was described in detail over a decade ago by Michael Alley. I blogged about it on February 19, 2014 in a post titled Assertion-Evidence PowerPoint slides are a visual alternative to bullet point lists.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On pages 102 and 103 in a table, as shown above in color, he describes his six-step, three-act SUPERB process for storytelling.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And on page 189 he describes the writing process with the acronym AUTHOR, as shown above.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On pages 213 and 214 is another table (shown above again in color) on using the SUPERB process for telling about yourself.

 

The frontispiece for a 1916 book of Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tales came from Wikimedia Commons.

 

Triumphs late in life

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Since I am a seasoned citizen, I enjoyed reading the 2024 book by Mo Rocca and Jonathan Greenberg titled Roctogenarians: Late in Life Debuts, Comebacks, and Triumphs. Starting on page 182 there is a section titled Sam and Betsey Farber: A Gripping Story. After Sam sold Copco (which made enameled cast-iron cookware) he and Betsey retired and moved to France. Betsey decided to make an apple tart, but found peeling fruit with an old peeler upset her arthritis. 

 

She and Sam decided to produce hand tools that would be more comfortable. They worked with designer Patricia Moore and wound up using a thermoplastic elastomer called Santoprene to make tools like the green Oxo Good Grips peeler shown above. (Also see the 30 second YouTube video). There is an article about it by Mark Wilson at Fast Company on September 24, 2018 titled The untold story of the vegetable peeler that changed the world.

 

The book begins with a chapter on Fast-Food Legends that starts with a section titled Chicken: Harland David Sanders began his KFC empire at sixty-six. The fifth chapter, The Writers has a section beginning on page 89 titled Peter Mark Roget: Finding Just the Words about how he published his famous book of synonyms (a thesarus) at an age of seventy-three.

 

 An image of an older peeler design came from Wikimedia Commons

 

 

A book on creativity from Grant Snider - profusely illustrated by comics

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Via interlibrary loan (from the Boise Public Library) I obtained and am extremely enjoying reading a thoughtful 2017 book with comics by Grant Snider titled The Shape of Ideas: An illustrated exploration of creativity. Grant is an orthodontist and an artist. He has a web site called Incidental Comics. The book cover has a hole shaped like a light bulb. And the book has ten sections with the following titles: 

 

INSPIRATION [Page 9]

PERSPIRATION [Page 22]

IMPROVISATION [Page 36]

ASPIRATION [Page 50]

CONTEMPLATION [Page 68]

EXPLORATION [Page 88]

DAILY FRUSTRATION [Page 102]

IMITATION [Page 114]

DESPERATION [Page 128]

PURE ELATION [Page 138]

 

Here are links to a dozen comics appearing in the book, as presented on web pages at his Incidental Comics site:

 

The perfect idea [page 12]

How to get ideas [page 23]

Mind game [page 47]

Paths to success [page 54]

A place for ideas [page 77]

Outside the box [pages 90 and 91]

Apartment living [page 96]

Creative blocks [page 105]

The art of living [page 119] also the title for his 2022 book

Chasing happiness [page 133]

My biggest fears [page 134]

Creative thinking [page 136 and 137]

 

His list for My Greatest Fears has the following fifteen, but public speaking isn’t one of them:

 

Dead birds

My student loan debt

The soul-stealing moon

Insomnia

Large Dogs

Blood cults

Cynicism

Heights

Hyperintelligent post-human dwarves

Taking the wrong bus

Unintentional plagiarism

Disembodied floating skulls

Hantavirus

Failure

Feral wolf-children

 

On September 19, 2024 I blogged about his 2022 book in a post titled A manifesto on what you should pay attention to – from a book on The Art of Living profusely illustrated by comic strips. And on September 28, 2024 I blogged about how In 2020 Grant Snider published a profusely illustrated book – I Will Judge You By Your Bookshelf.

 

My big idea lightbulb was adapted from this image at Openclipart.

 

Try slow productivity to accomplish things without burning out

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At the Ada Community Library I recently found the interesting 2024 book by Calvin C. Newport titled SLOW PRODUCTIVITY: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout. There is a review of it by Jennifer Szalai at The New York Times on March 6, 2024 titled The Very Busy Writer Telling Everyone to Slow Down.

 

He defines slow productivity on page 41:

 

SLOW PRODUCTIVITY

A philosophy for organizing knowledge work efforts in a sustainable and meaningful manner, based on the following three principles:

1] Do fewer things.

2] Work at a natural pace.

3] Obsess over quality.

 

Then he defines those principles in more detail:

 

PRINCIPLE #1: DO FEWER THINGS (page 53)

Strive to reduce your obligations to the point where you can easily imagine accomplishing them with time to spare. Leverage this reduced load to more fully embrace and advance the small number of projects that matter most.

 

PRINCIPLE #2: WORK AT A NATURAL PACE (page 116)

Don’t rush your most important work. Allow it instead to unfold along a sustainable timeline, with variations in intensity, in settings conducive to brilliance.

 

PRINCIPLE #3: OBSESS OVER QUALITY (page 173)

Obsess over the quality of what you produce, even if this means missing opportunities in the short term. Leverage the value of these results to gain more and more freedom in your efforts over the long term.

 

Cal describes his goals in conclusion on page 216:

 

“I have two goals for this book. The first is focused: to help as many people as possible free themselves from the dehumanizing grip of pseudo-productivity. As noted in the introduction, not everyone has access to this outcome. The philosophy I developed is meant primarily for those who engage in skilled labor with significant amounts of autonomy. This target audience covers large swaths of the knowledge sector, including most freelancers, solopreneurs, and small-business owners, as well as those in fields like academia, where great freedom is afforded in how you choose and organize your efforts.

 

If you fall into one of those categories, and are exhausted by the chronic overload and fast pacing of pseudo-productivity, then I urge you to consider radically transforming your professional life along the three principles I proposed. Do fewer things. Work at a natural pace. Obsess over quality. Depending on the details of your role, this probably won’t mean spending weeks staring up at tree branches or typing notes on a typewriter, but it will almost certainly lead to a more sustainable relationship with your job.”  

 

The Antonio Zanchi painting of Sisyphus was modified from one at Wikimedia Commons.

 

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Then quit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is a brief proverb (from back in 1840) by Thomas H. Palmer that:

 

“If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again”

 

I was looking at Annie Duke’s 2022 book, Quit: the power of knowing when to walk away, and found she quoted a newer and profane parody of it (attributed to the comedian W. C. Fields):

 

“If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.

 Then quit. There’s no use being a damn fool about it.”

 

Annie referenced the Quote Investigator web site by Garson O’Toole, which has an article on August 12, 2013 titled If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Then quit. There’s no use being a damn fool about it. Mr. O’Toole found that it did not come from Fields, but was attributed to him after he had died. There are other versions with ‘silly’ rather than ‘a damn fool.’

 

There are two other variations by Barry Popik at The Big Apple. The first one from August 30, 2012 is:

 

“If at first you don’t succeed, redefine success.”

 

The second one from January 3, 2017 is:

 

“If at first you don’t succeed, try two more times so your failure is statistically significant.”

 

There is a third variation at an article in the 2015, Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs (by Jennifer Speake and J. A. Simpson):

 

“If at first you don’t succeed, try reading the instructions.”

 

Thomas H. Palmer’s original proverb had appeared on page 223 of his 1840 book titled The Teacher’s Manual. It is the third and fourth lines from a longer poem:

 

“TRY, TRY AGAIN

 

‘Tis a lesson you should heed,

Try, try again;

If at first you don’t succeed,

Try, try again;

Then your courage should appear,

For, if you will persevere,

You will conquer, never fear;

Try, try again;

 

Once or twice, though you should fail,

Try, try again;

If you would, at last prevail,

Try, try again;

If we strive, ‘tis no disgrace,

Though we may not win the race;

What should you do in the case?

Try, try again;

 

If you find your task is hard,

Try, try again;

Time will bring you your reward,

Try, try again;

All that other folks can do,

Why, with patience, should not you?

Only keep this rule in view,

TRY, TRY AGAIN”

 

Making a product great by taking care of details, like including a screwdriver

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Recently I enjoyed reading Tony Fadell’s 2022 book Build: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making. He is known as the ‘father of the iPod’ and co-creator of the iPhone. Beginning on page 103 there is a wonderful story about development of the Nest smart thermostat. You can watch the Nest thermostat installation video here.

 

They knew do-it-yourself installation might be a problem, so a sample of people were given prototypes to install. It took them an average of an hour to finish. Why so long? People wasted a half hour looking around the house for their screwdrivers. They needed a Phillips-head screwdriver to mount the Nest, but might also need a flat-bladed one to remove their old thermostat.   

 

 So Nest changed the installation procedure by including a cute little conical screwdriver, as shown above, with four interchangeable heads - under the hemispherical end cover.  Now installation took less than half an hour and was painless. Tony said:

 

“Journalists wrote articles about the screwdriver. It appeared in every five-star review. It was free PR, a boost to word of mouth. Instead of a bowl of candy at the Nest front desk, we had a bowl full of screwdrivers. It became a symbol for the entire user experience—thoughtful, elegant, long-lived, and deeply useful.”

 

The caption for Figure 3.1.4 says:

 

“The original Nest screwdriver cost around $1.50 to make, so including it in every box was hugely controversial on a team that was focused on being lean and profitable. But the screwdriver’s friendly shape made installing the thermostat yourself seem less daunting and it was so handy that it functioned as a marketing tool long after sale.”

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Conversely, you can frustrate customers by not doing something taken for granted - like including the battery in a tool requiring one. Recently I bought a $25 infrared laser thermometer (as shown above) from the Boise Harbor Freight store. The woman behind the checkout counter warned me that a 9V rectangular battery was NOT included, so I stopped somewhere else to get one on my drive home.