Think back to the summer you were 13 years old. What did it look like? What were you doing?
If you’re like me, it’s a bit tough, all these decades later, to remember many (if any) of the specifics.
Likely, it involved 21 Jump Street reruns, Price Is Right Showcase Showdowns (and Plinko), Spaceballs on VHS, playing hoops at the East End playground, and maybe jumping in a neighborhood pool.
What it definitely didn’t look like was the DM I got a few weeks ago on Twitter/ X.
Check it:
To be 100% honest, I barely skimmed this when it came through, definitely didn’t read the second paragraph at all, skipped to the “ask”, thought it was “cute,” didn’t feel like saying yes even in the slightest, but felt kinda bad with an outright no.
Wanting to be a “good guy” while also secretly hoping this would be the end of it, let Connor know what he was doing was great (building an audience, etc) and that if he could find a time on my schedule (with the link) I would be “happy” to do it. Secretly knew all my open times fell during the school day.
Forgot about summer break.
Connor did, in fact, grab a time on my schedule, and last week I jumped on his podcast for about 30 minutes.
Been doing this kind of thing for a bunch of years, guesting on more than a handful a year during my Locked on Nets run. I can say this confidently: Connor was as good as it gets. Dude was punctual, articulate, knew his shit, respected the hell out of my time, and did literally everything correctly.
I was more than a little blown away.
It was really only afterward that I realized the list of people he’d already had on his shows (second paragraph). These are legit names in the media landscape (Adam Schefter, especially, by far the biggest NFL newsbreaker out there).
In Connor Long’s world, I was very much a time-filler small potato.
This would be impressive for anyone; it’s ultra-impressive for a kid four years away from driving legally.
It wasn’t and isn’t by accident.
The kid is a grinder. And already has figured out a ton about how the world works, especially when it comes to creating stuff.
We kinda bet on everything these days. Sports, stocks, elections, crypto, awards shows, you name it. There's a market for speculating on just about anything (it’s Polymarket, and it’s wild).
Sitting there with Connor made me kinda-not-really wish there were markets for betting on people. Not in a weird, dehumanizing way, but more like, 'I don't know what this kid's going to do, but whatever it is, he's going to crush it.'
It might not be in the thing they are doing now, but it’s going to be something, because they’re already figuring out the steps to get there, even if they don’t even know where “there” is yet.
It’s kind of not important to even know the “where”, especially at an early age. The considerably more important thing is setting yourself up to be the person to bet on.
We could likely all take a page from this approach, or to fashion ourselves as if we were living in a world where there were invisible markets around us with others deciding if we were a person to bet on.
And it’s almost better to not even know what the metrics of success look like, but to create a holistic view of the world, decide what would be good “bet-able” traits, and work from there.
For everyone, it would look different. Some would index on straight wealth creation. Some lean all the way into kindness. Both seem like bet-able traits to me.
The Hallmark-y, feel-good desk calendar version is tantamount to a shift from 'What do you want to be when you grow up?' to 'What kind of person do you want to become?'
Someone who shows up to a podcast with adults and is prepared, follows through, treats people well, gets all the right gear, takes some big shots, and keeps improving. That’s a person to bet on. That stuff travels basically anywhere.
The bigger list could even be:
Find things you love doing
Do those things as much as you can
Improve in the things that help do that thing you love
Make connections with other people who like doing that thing
Say yes when you can
No, when you can’t
Improve daily
Ask for help
And maybe cut back on the cursing, Netflix, Instagram, ice cream, and Tostitos.
Ask yourself, somewhat consistently (no matter your age, this shit probably works at 45 as much as it does at 13): How would I act if my future success was a bet other people could make?
Be the kind of person you think a lot of people would bet on.
Do all of those things and you’ll get Adam Schefter (or even better, Doug Norrie) on your podcast.
That’s real winning. That’s something (or someone) I’d put money on.
Doug Norrie is the Boss and the Assistant to the Regional Manager of DN Creative, a writing agency working with creators and businesses to tell their stories.
Each week, this newsletter “explores” the intersection of getting older and faking wiser.
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