The Difference Between Doing and Building (And Why It Matters)

I had a conversation with a remarkable young woman the other day. It was a random introduction made by an acquaintance at best and all he said to me was, "it would mean a lot if you could talk to this marketer on my team." I get a lot of these type of introductions and I always try to do the call, probably because it was calls like this that helped me so much early in my career and candidly I believe deeply in paying it forward - it's what I've grown to call "karmapreneurship" - the art of paying forward your energy in hopes of creating a ripple or wave of bigger energy that creates a better world.

So I took the call. It was a delight. We talked about how she started in Marketing, and how much she loved it. We bonded over the common stories (we all have candidly) of rough first-time managers, extreme (and often unwarranted) doubt in ourselves, and the inevitable challenge of growing into a leader and not really knowing where to turn when it feels like you've hit a wall.

I always tend to turn to a few questions in conversations like this, and one of them is "if in ten years you accomplished everything you wanted to and we were sitting down to celebrate, what would that look like?"

This is a handy question when you're setting your brand vision and mission statement, and it's a very handy question when you're setting your own brand vision and mission statement. If you are successful in what you hope to accomplish, what is true about the world?

However, she immediately had a distraught look and couldn't really find a clear answer and simply said, "Honestly, I don't know what I'm supposed to do."

All I could do was say exactly how I was feeling which was "girl, I hear that." I have heard that sentence more in the last few years than in my previous ten. This sense of lostness. This sense of seeking something more than the role they are in, the ladder they were climbing, the path they were on. Maybe it was COVID that smacked us with a dose of reality so harsh we couldn't help but wake up, maybe its the major shifts in how we live and what we prioritize our time that followed, or maybe its the upside down economy we're living in, or the insane sense of turmoil we're feeling on a global scale. Geezz, I don't know, maybe it's the combination of all of that happening in less than two years.

But there is no way around it, there are a lot of people wrapping up the year and reflecting on what can only be described as "a really weird year" and thinking to themselves-- "what am I supposed to do?"

I've spent a lot of years doing. Probably because I'm a Type A perfectionist, who spent way too many years caring what people thought of her. Probably because I grew up in a home where my father worked crazy early hours to provide for us, and my mom was a #girlboss (yes I'm still using that term, because I like it, let's move on). Probably because I've been "rewarded" for being a do-er my entire life, and it's a self-sustaining loop that has only pushed me year over year over year to do more. And more. And more.

But something in me clicked when that remarkable woman said those words and all I could really think was --"damn, I'm tired."

Tired of always figuring out the next list of things to do. Tired of setting bigger and better goals every year. Tired of feeling, especially as a woman leader in tech, that every year has to be up and to the right. Tired of constantly wondering if I should be "doing more" to stay relevant and be successful.

The real irony is that when I advise Founders, CEOs and CMOs - there are a few golden rules I always return to and one of them is- "do less." The power of stripping the noise down to the single most important thing to you and your business is actually what makes or breaks most companies.

And so I said to this woman the advice I often give entrepreneurs and other leaders struggling with what to prioritize or do next: "it's not about what you do, it's about what you build."

If you wake up every day and your goal is to "do things" - you will inevitably choose the easiest to check off the list, the wrong things, and likely the things other people have signaled to you are important (for their reasons, not yours). It's human nature. Doing things means you are performing random actions in the hopes of feeling progress.

If you wake up every day and your goal is to "build things" - you will inevitably choose the harder, more valuable things on your list. They will take more intention, and more time. But they will fulfill you more and be worthy of that energy. Building things means you bring pieces together and craft something stronger and more beautiful.

This year was a wild one for me. I did a lot of things. Hit my financial goals. Hit my workout goals. Grew a business. Hired a team. Completed a rebrand. Invested in startups. I did a lot of great things.

But this year I had set one goal and it was to "Build a family foundation for my husband, myself and my new daughter - one that is based on our own rules, one that serves us all and sets us up to live healthy, full, happy lives."

And as I look back at the tradeoffs I chose, the things I downshifted on, the very hard decision to give notice in my full-time role, and a few dozen other choices I made along the way, I can say with absolute certainly they were done with this goal of building a family in mind.

Well, this one has gotten long, but all of this to say --as we all take note of the last year and what we accomplished and as we all look forward at 2023 - just a little reminder that the goal isn't to "do a lot of things" but to "build one or two remarkable things" that you can be proud of.

I wish someone had told younger ambitious Joanna to chill out sometimes. Man she was intense. Always trying to do more and more and more, and ugh, it was exhausting.

Waking up every day, building something inch by inch, in service of nothing but the goal to build it --is actually the work.

And it's beautiful work.

I'll be signing off for the next few weeks to enjoy time with my family and friends, and I just wanted to wish you all a wonderful holiday. I'll be picking this back up in the New Year with vigor and sass, and I can't wait to see where it takes us.

Happy New Year everyone, may it be full of building beautiful things.