Since Webb and I sit less than 2 meters apart for many hours a day, we hadn't hung out outside of work for way too long. To rectify the situation, we got together this past weekend to cook, drink, and hang.
We were doing all three at once when the subject of our new embroidered shirts and hats came up. The pieces are, from what I've seen in the past, technically perfect. We don't have the easiest logo in the world to draw, let alone stitch into fabric and yet the logo looks really sharp on the hats and polos that we got.
Webb hates them.
He tried to explain why for a drink or two and then he nailed it: "Dude, Tribal isn't trying to be cool. Tribal is cool. Those hats are NOT cool. Those hats are trying to be cool."
He was dead on.
Later in the night we were talking about a one of our friends who has done 90% of our testing for us. I didn't realize it until I was driving in this morning, but we paid him one of the highest compliments we could: we described him as "genuine". As a matter of fact, we're pretty sure that he's the most genuine person we know.
Once that thought lodged in my head, I quickly saw that the people and businesses that I like are the ones who are genuine. I can't stand the big chain pizza companies because they pretend to be customer-focused, but aren't. I love the hole-in-the-wall Mediterranean place that we go every Thursday for sharwirma because it's everything it promises to be: a hole-in-the-wall with good food for almost no money. I resented my Jaguar because it was pretending to be a luxury car, even though it's far from luxurious to be in the shop all the time. I love my new Nissan Versa (the car we've chosen for our delivery vehicles) because it does exactly what it's supposed to do and was cheap enough to put on a credit card (in case any potential investors are reading this: that's not what I did).
Take a look around today. Are the people around you pretending to be something they aren't? Are the places you go putting up a thin veil or are they living their values? As for me, I'm going to go search for some new hats.
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