The Saturday Rabbit Hole Backstory
Weekly Newsletter Sent Out Every Saturday
Welcome to the imaginative and thought-provoking world of Dave Rothacker! Join him in a trek down the Saturday Rabbit Hole every week. Here is a little back story on the inspiration to his weekly newsletter. Subscribe today!
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Inspiration and Backstory
The primary idea for the Saturday Rabbit Hole comes from Lewis Carroll’s 1865 book Alice in Wonderland. Additional influence comes from Jefferson Airplane’s song, “White Rabbit” and the Monday Morning Memo email newsletter written by Roy Williams.
Alice chases the white rabbit down the hole in the book to explore, pursue her curiosity, and feed her imagination. I am passionately curious and strive to be creative, stoked by my imagination.
In the song lyrics, Jefferson Airplane responds to “What the Dormouse Said” with “Feed Your Head.” I have a deep and ravenous hunger to grow and develop professionally.
Roy Williams is a brilliant communicator and marketer. Indy Beagle is the dog in the Monday Morning Memo who goes down the rabbit hole every week. Williams is a primary influence on my writing. I used to read his marketing books to help improve my writing.
We venture into the Saturday Rabbit Hole to pursue curiosity, engage imagination, ask questions, explore possibilities, and provoke thought. Our natural response to these activities is to seek information, knowledge, connection, and wisdom.
It isn’t any more complicated than that.
As an HVAC manager, Saturday morning was my favorite day. It was a time to process thinking and action in a quiet environment. Reflection revealed curiosity to pursue and topics to explore…for about the first six years of my career.
While I was a manager for the next nineteen years and continuing after retirement from contracting in 2009, my primary areas of study lie outside the trades in Leadership, Purpose, Marketing, Branding, Psychology, Sociology, Neuroscience, Design, and Creativity. I gathered intel and brought back and shared lessons, ideas, possibilities, and thought provocation.
For the most part, I am not a how-to author. There are enough talented writers out there offering content like, “How to Run a Service Department”, “How to Acquire Five-Star Reviews”, and “How to Sell Service Agreements.”
My intent is to cause leaders to stop and think. Whether I use a story analogy, invert a popular business practice, or encourage readers to break away from the chain of the status quo, I want leaders to examine their thinking, intentions, and actions and look for better ways.
So grab a cup of coffee, pull up your favorite reading chair, and prepare to trek down the Saturday Rabbit Hole.
“It’s no use going back to yesterday because I was a different person then.” Alice from Alice in Wonderland
This is a sample Saturday Rabbit Hole
Who are you influenced by?
Two leadership experts who I follow are Doug Conant and Bill George. Both are from the school of “our life story is our leadership story.” Our ability to lead is rooted in the life we’ve led.
If you want to develop a leadership philosophy, examine your life story. People who’ve influenced you throughout your life contribute to your leadership.
We’re not looking to go too deep into the life story/leadership story rabbit hole this morning. Simply identify these people and ask, “Why have they influenced me?”
Think of this discovery process as a “way leads on to way” exercise. If you never get underway and travel down the Road, you will never know what could be. Why? Because each step forward involves an enlightened awareness, new experiences, and new learning. None of this would be possible unless you get underway.
In other words, what you learn in your life story’s linear self-exploration journey would have been impossible sitting around trying to think stuff up. Who influenced you and why? Way leads on to way.
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What are we doing today that no longer suits us, and why are we doing it in the first place? The eight-hour workday and five-day week originated in the mid-19th century. We’ve known for decades that this is so two centuries ago, and COVID-19 has spotlighted it.
Old-world business thinking says, “Let’s do four ten-hour days.”
Today’s world of work wants four, eight-hour days or other creative solutions.
Old-world thinking whines, “But, but, but, what about productivity?”
Task smart people today with creating a productive thirty-two-hour workweek, and they’ll generate ideas, systems, processes, and solutions that you could never dream up.
Don’t get sidetracked on the workweek alone, however. What are you doing today because that’s what you did yesterday!? Please, please, please tell me that you’re not still doing annual reviews!
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Become a student of Google and generative AI.
Two alternative ways to learn:
Google—Type a question into Google search. Then, follow the People Also Ask trail, located below the first batch of search results.
Generative AI – Think ChatGPT 4o or CoPilot—type in a question. Read the answer. Then, refine your questions and ask again. Repeat this process.
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“Hey, Davo, who are you influenced by?”
There are many. Two from the Dead Men category are Thomas Jefferson and Mark Twain. From Dead Women – Margaret Fuller.
Here’s another thing to consider regarding influence: We are influenced by people who believe in us. Spend time understanding why someone believes in you, and then work to strengthen and develop those traits.
Inversely, believe in others. People tend to strive and keep pursuing excellence when they know someone believes in them.
It’s GoTime!