Sunday, June 18th, 2023
What I learned this week | Work That's Fun
Good morning all!
Happy Sunday, Father’s Day, Birthday to Steph, Juneteenth, Long Weekend, Summer Solstice… All of it. There’s much to acknowledge, celebrate and be grateful for this weekend. So let’s have some fun ya?
Speaking of which, we shipped our second episode of Lone Geniuses a few weeks back with Emily Grubman—and it’s all about optimizing work for fun.
Emily has low-key named a lot of the products you know and love. She worked at Red Antler in branding and decided the thing she liked best was naming things. So now that’s all she does. Why? Because, in her words, it’s the exercise that’s most fun. Simple. Love it.
Full episode below. Listen by a pool somewhere.
Mike
🔖 My feed this week
Lone Geniuses: Episode 2: Optimizing Work for Fun with Emily Grubman
Our next guest is Emily Grubman. Emily is the Founder of Title Case, a consulting company that focuses entirely on naming. Before starting her own business, Emily spent nearly six years at Red Antler working on some of the biggest DTC brands in the world. She became the firm’s naming expert, naming companies like Prose, Burrow, and more.
What I love about Emily’s career path is her focus on work that’s fun. She picked naming because it’s the thing she liked doing the best. And as you’ll learn, Emily has a knack for finding the right rooms to be in and keeping it honest and authentic with the people she meets.
Her story is also about persistence and grit. She lied about her address being in NYC to get her first job before moving to the city, and she paid the bills in her early career days as a tasker on Task Rabbit, waiting in line for people who wanted to go to Shakespeare in the Park.
Listen to episode 2 on Spotify below. Catch it everywhere else here.
🎶 What I learned this week
Fun as the compass.
Just a provocation this week and that’s it. What if instead of analyzing, managing, strategizing, or following some pre-determined societal path, you trusted fun as the compass? Or perhaps joy, satisfaction, excitement… Pick a word that suits you and gives you energy and optimize for that this week, instead of “trying” to get your next move “right”.