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- ⛔️ A big lesson
⛔️ A big lesson
Today marks 5 years since I got in the worst biking accident of my life.
It was a foggy morning in San Francisco, and I was racing down Market Street to get to work.
I knew every traffic light on the street and exactly when they'd turn green. To hit every light, I needed to maintain a perfect speed — no slowing down.
So I zoomed. Green light, keep going. Green light, keep going. Green light, kee… oh look a biker in front of me going at a sensible speed.
I couldn’t afford to slow down, not if I wanted to beat the next light. So I swerved out of the bike lane and made a left turn where I wasn’t supposed to.
As I crossed the cable car tracks in the middle of the road, my bike slipped and slammed me on the ground.
I lay flat in the road, certain I’d broken my hip.
Miraculously, I walked away with only a torn MCL and a fractured femur.
But somehow, I thought I’d failed.
I didn’t make the green light in time.
I was rushing to get to work before 8:30 a.m. It was 8:32.
And looking back, I realize how dumb I was.
My desire to rush to work, at a time that was already 30 minutes before most people got in, destroyed my ability to walk for six months.
But that accident taught me a lesson I try to live by every day: do not rush.
Not to work. Not to home. Not to build a business. Not through a project. Not toward some arbitrary goal.
Today, I live in New York City — a place where rushing is the norm — and I’ve become the slow walker. People zoom past me while I savor each step, grateful just to walk.
Yet, I still catch myself rushing, especially these past few weeks. Getting anxious over deals that fall through, slowing growth, or layoffs in the marketing community. Sometimes, it feels like what we do is never enough.
So we push harder, work longer, and rush faster. We sacrifice our health and relationships, trying to prove something to a world that doesn’t even notice. But when we ignore the whispers of the universe, it will scream at us — sometimes in the form of a bike accident.
So whatever you’re going through, remember this: patience.
Rushing is an act of self harm.
Slow growth always wins.
I know this isn’t my usual marketing message (I’ve got plenty of drafts I’ll share next week), but I felt this was worth saying. Many of us are rushing — and for what?
Take a breath. Slow down. And let yourself savor the journey. After all, that’s all we really have.
With that, let's get into what we have in store this week (lots of good stuff):
Marketing news from the past week
How to scale a marketplace
16 copywriting mistakes to avoid
How to build a growth-focused SEO strategy
10 brand rules for founders
Ad in the wild
Website of the week
Cool marketing jobs
And much more
🗞 In the news
🚀 All things growth & product
Nine great growth frameworks, how to scale a marketplace, and how repositioning a product can 8x its price.
💭 Guess the riddle
I have keys but no locks. I have space but no room. You can enter, but you can’t go outside. What am I?
Answer is at the bottom of this email
💌 Emails & copywriting
Black Friday email marketing strategy, 16 copywriting mistakes to avoid, Charles Bukowski’s rules for writing.
✍️ SEO & content marketing
ChatGPT’s growth alongside Google, November core update causing some reversals, and how to create a growth-focused SEO strategy.
Very interesting to look at the August & November core updates side by side. Lots of reversals.
— Lily Ray 😏 (@lilyraynyc)
12:36 PM • Nov 19, 2024
The ultimate Google Ads guide for B2B SaaS startups, tips for posting short-form videos on LinkedIn, and 10 brand rules for founders.
🍼 From Marketer Milk
📣 Ad in the wild
Loving the Back Market ads in the NYC subways.
💻 Website of the week
🏝 Cool marketing jobs
Product Marketing Manager @ Coda
Email Marketing Lead @ Breef
Growth Marketing Lead @ Warp
Brand & Integrated Marketing Lead @ Webflow
Content Marketing Lead @ Relay
Okay, that's it for now 🧡. See you next Tuesday!
What did you think of this newsletter? |
“We will discover the nature of our particular genius when we stop trying to conform to our own or to other peoples’ models, learn to be ourselves, and allow our natural channel to open.” — Shakti Gawain
Riddle answer: A keyboard.