A Tourist in My Own Town

This is from a segment of my Friday newsletter called "On My Mind." Sign up using the form at the bottom of the page to get these delivered directly to your inbox.

Last week, what was on my mind couldn't have been clearer. I knew what I was going to talk about Monday morning, after my friend Mike Paccione sent me the story about Marissa Mayer using AI to describe her kid.

This week, I have something more intangible. A funeral brought me back to my hometown for the first time since my parents moved 3 years ago. I would always visit with friends when I visited my parents because it was more efficient.

But as I settled into my hotel room, I had what would be a recurring thought:

It's weird being a tourist in the place where I grew up.

I didn't have my parents' house to crash at. All of my friends, like myself, have kids and lives. I didn't even think to ask to crash with one of them...I didn't want to impose.

But aside from that, the town changed just enough, and my memory was just fuzzy enough, that I needed GPS to get to most places. I didn't know where to go to eat or hang out.

Then there was the guilt I had about not seeing any of the people I grew up with in well over 3 years (I promise I'll relate this back to being a solo business owner in a minute). I had let my relationships wither because it was no longer "efficient" to visit.

The funeral brought us together, and we were able to grab lunch and go to the mall after. It was like old times. We caught up and quickly fell back into our old routine.

Now, I'm getting ready to leave town to speak to a group of students in my alma mater's Comp Sci department. The topic is AI. In a world where more code is being reliably written by coding agents, the intangibles remain important: human connection, communication, and understanding how problems affect people.

I wouldn't call my need to be in town for a funeral serendipity. Loss of life is always tough, even when long suffering ends. But being here has been a stark reminder of everything I've been talking about and will talk about later today.

When you prioritize efficiency over everything, something gets lost. That's why you should do things even if they aren't efficient. Effective is the better measuring stick. Feeling like a tourist in my hometown reminded me of that. But it also reminded me of the strength of personal relationships.

When you actually put effort into something, you get better results. I talked about this in Monday's newsletter too. Doing hard things makes them matter.

This is true in your business as much as it is in your personal life: don't let something being hard prevent you from doing something worthwhile.