Hey there,

Today, Madison celebrates 5 years at Workweek. Amazing accomplishment. Thank you Madison for all that you do.

If you didn't see slack: lobbytv.workweek.com is now up and running if you want to see the latest.

With that, let's dive in.

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1) 25 Years Ago & It's Still A Core Memory

It was a Tuesday and my 6th grade class went to 8am church every Tuesday. The church had about 120 kids and maybe 20 regulars. Then out of no where, a regular walks up to the priest in the middle of mass and whispers something. The priest ended mass and sent us all back to our classrooms.

His face was a look I'll never forget. He was so scared and shocked.

The rest of the day, my homeroom teacher, who happened to be a social studies teacher had the TV on all day.

I had an uncle in the Pentagon at the time and remember getting to go to the principal's office to talk to my dad. He was ok. I also learned in that moment that the Pentagon is so big that those on the opposite of the building barely knew what happened.

September 11, 2001 changed our country forever. We've essentially been in a war ever since. We saw islamaphobia spread through our country. A new generation learned the feeling of your country under attack, no too different than the generation before us with Pearl Harbor.

I also remember how united we felt as a country. When President Bush through that pitch at Yankee Stadium it gave everyone goosebumps. Hearing the stories of the hero's that day like the man in the red bandana made you realize how incredible humans can be. Or the Flight 93 "let's roll" group of how brave and selfless humans can be.

In many ways, the worst moment in so many of our lives brought out the best in people.

It's easy to be sucked in on the internet and think everyone is a dumb troll with no common connection between most of us. But that day showed us something that different. That America is built on community with shared common values. That we do have more in common than we do differently. That a stranger can be our hero.

2 ) You can do it, you just have to try

This past week I saw Madison onboard new hires into a new tool that she built herself. Not only did it save us money, but it's way freakin better than the thing we had before. And it took less than two weeks.

Then later this week she started helping Becca with a problem she was having by building a solution for her.

She designed it in Claude Design and then built it in the terminal using Claude Code. The same way our product/eng team does.

It's truly incredible.

I've worked with Madison for 7+ years. I can pretty confidently say she never built a product, designed much, and couldn't code.

But guess what? She tried.

After work hours she learned how to get the set up right, she asked good questions, and then she started to try. It's truly inspirational to see and watch because effort and willingness is the driving force behind her doing this.

There are so many problems in the business that need solving, like any business. So many people here have an expertise to help build a solution that could solve it or even wish they could customize something to make their life easier. Even if we're not talking about your current role or Workweek, the ability to solve your own problems or help others solve theirs is one of the most valuable things you can do for your career.

The only thing holding you back from doing that, is you. You have to lean in. Be comfortable failing and making mistakes. You have to want to learn and grow. You have to be ok being a bit uncomfortable.

Most of you have had a lot of success in your life. You are brilliant. You are hard working. You are RAs and straight A students. Doing things that you're not great at or even struggle with is not something you probably can't wait to do. Specifically, doing something that might be public at some point.

My ask to you: be comfortable with that feeling of being "bad" and asking the dumb questions. Trust me. It's ok. It's actaully wonderful.

My promise to you: if you want to learn the basics of what Madison and I know, let me know. I'll put together some training and get togethers to help.

3) Stay in the game

As Madison hits 5 years today (!) and Callie is soon after, it made me think about how time and success is correlated.

In the age of AI everything is go faster, shrunken timelines, and short-term thinking. But the reality is that time is your best friend when it comes to success.

The longer you stick in it, the more you will learn, the more you adapt, the more chance you can win.

The Co-Founder of Netflix recently said he would have never imagined in a million years what Netflix looks like today back in 1997. But they stayed in the game. They kept working. They listened to customers. They made great decisions along the way.

Today, in many ways, Netflix feels like it's still innovating with live sports and more. Yet, they're almost 30 years old.

It's hard to picture and imagine Workweek 25 years from now. Who fucking knows what we'll be doing. But one thing is true, we'll be a lot bigger and lot more successful if we can keep going.

Same goes for all of you. Keep building. There are days that are brutally hard. There are seasons of life that suck. But the best thing you can do is to keep going. Keep showing up with the best version of yourself you can.

One day, you'll wake up and be like "holy shit, look how far we've come!"

That's how I feel today.

Question of the weekCopy anchor linkCopied

Would you have any interest in learning to design/code if we offered something for you to learn?

Thanks for reading and make it a great one.

Adam