Relationship Rhythms starts tomorrow!
Relationship Rhythms registration closes today, Sunday June 15. We start tomorrow with our first lesson.
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Your career is no longer a linear ladder you climb alone, but a nonlinear path of shared discovery. - Anne-Laure LeCunff
I just returned from Craft and Commerce in Boise, where one talk in particular stuck with me.
Anne-Laure LeCunff—founder of Ness Labs and author of Tiny Experiments—spoke about how experimentation creates the path, rather than trying to follow a fixed one.
As someone with a science background myself, this hit home. And it might shift how you approach your summer, too.
Turn Goals into Pacts
Linear goals promise certainty - if we just stick to the plan and climb, we will arrive safely at the expected destination. But life rarely follows such rigid and predictable patterns.
The first argument Anne-Laure makes is for pacts over goals.
What’s a pact?
I will [action] for [duration].
This is an actionable commitment you will fulfill for a set period of time. What makes this so effective is that it focuses on your outputs rather than your outcomes. It’s designed to be purposeful, actionable, continuous, and trackable. You should be able to track your pact with a binary question: have you done it or not?
The challenge with many goals is that the outcome is the point - we do X to get Y. The challenge with many habits is that they are unbounded. And many projects (like writing a book) are resource intensive.
But pacts have a set duration. They are simple. They are designed for action.
Most importantly, they provide the essential components of trial and error, with sufficient data to make any decisions.
Create Growth Loops
Picture this: You did it. After days, weeks, or perhaps months of consistent effort, the trial period is over. You published the hundredth blog post… or maybe you didn’t carry out the experiment as planned. Either way it doesn’t matter. What matters is you collected data and dedicated time for reflection throughout the experiment.
Anne-Laure's other argument was for embedding meta-cognition, aka growth loops.
A growth loop doesn’t ask, “Did I hit the target?”
It asks:
– What happened?
– What did I learn?
– What will I adjust next time?
Progress arrives in conversation with our environment; as Anne-Laure writes, we don’t go in circles, we grow in circles.
The shift from performance pressure to learning momentum is what keeps progress sustainable.
Choosing a Summer Pact
If you’re doing Relationship Rhythms this summer, your pact for the program is clear.
I will [reach out to 5 people per week] for [6 weeks].
(It’s a 9 week program, but the first three weeks are groundwork).
But maybe outreach isn’t your requirement right now. Here are other common pacts, including my next YouTube pact:
- I will write a blog post every week for 10 weeks.
- I will analyze 10 YouTube videos in 10 weeks (to learn about storytelling)
- I will create 100 LinkedIn posts in 100 workdays.
- I will leave my phone outside my bedroom for a month.
And as you complete the pact, you’ll learn something.
If your pact is outreach, you may learn:
- You need to expand your network in a more drastic way than you thought
- You need to trim your collaborator and connector list to a smaller number
- You need something to be inviting people to on a regular basis
- Monday mornings don’t work for outreach, but Wednesday morning works great
- Asking for the sale feels tough because you don’t love your offer
You may also learn that your pact isn’t for you. I once tried a 100-day art challenge and realized about 30 days in that I wasn’t enjoying it at all, even as I persisted, and I set my pens down. The pact was long enough for me to get through the beginning stages, settle in to a flow, and still decide not to continue. You do have to get curious enough to break through the initial "new" phase, which is why a bounded time duration commitment is important.
But what will certainly happen, especially if you complete your pact?
You’ll have made the time and space for action.
You’ll have gotten through the awkward first steps, which are probably uncomfortable for everyone no matter how tiny the steps are.
You’ll have put in some infrastructure to make continuing with your pact easier.
And… you’ll come out with clear learnings and a purposeful break for reflection.
Whether it’s outreach, writing, or rest—your pact doesn’t need to be big. Just clear enough to act on.
And if relationship marketing is your summer pact, the design of Relationship Rhythms is geared to make it as straightforward as possible, to give you prompts and external accountability.
So… what’s your summer pact?
Systematic curiosity provides an unshakable certitude in your ability to grow even when the exact path forward is uncertain, with the knowledge that your actions can align with your most authentic ambitions.