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You’ll Screw Up!
At around 1:20pm, while presenting at the “Survival of the Fittest 2.0″ session at Search Engine Strategies last Tuesday, I get the text message from my wife “I am in labor.” At 11:32 pm Matthew David Eisenberg joined our family. Baby and mom are doing well. My daughter and other son are enamored with our new addition.
Driving home that night from the hospital brought memories of my Mom and Dad and their great words of wisdom around parenting. “Your job as a parent is to screw up your child the least possible.” We are human and we are going to make mistakes; no child, no parent is perfect. It’s easy to look back and see where we made those poor decisions but the value comes when you start identifying those things “in the moment” and are able to make the changes so as not to repeat the past. It isn’t uncommon to find a first time parent who took the time to read the books, or take the classes on the grand theory of parenting only to be rudely awakened at the “real-time results.”
So why am I providing you with parenting advice on GrokDotCom? Because the lesson applies equally to your online marketing efforts. You’ll screw up and just like we shared during the “Survival of the Fittest” session to succeed you need to learn to be nimble and make changes on the fly. The key is to plan on optimizing, you don’t succeed with a set it and leave it mentality. What’s your plan for continuous improvement?
Join me in wishing Matthew much success in his life and in hoping I screw up as little as possible.
About the author
Bryan Eisenberg is the co-author of New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling books Call to Action, Waiting For Your Cat to Bark and Always Be Testing. Bryan is available as a professional speaker. You can friend him on Facebook or follow him on Twitter (@TheGrok).
More articles from Bryan Eisenberg
- Nobody wants to read your sh**!September 21st, 2009
- Redesign? Ask The Right Questions!September 18th, 2009
- Cross-post: How to Improve a Product Page, Part 1September 15th, 2009
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March 30th, 2009
10:25 am
Welcome to the world Matthew!
As a parent I completely understand the post and where you are going with it.
Marketing and Parenting do have a lot of similarities to each other and being able to make decisions and adapt on the fly certainly applies to both of them.
March 30th, 2009
11:18 am
Congratulations Bryan!
March 30th, 2009
11:55 am
Congratulations to you and your wife on the birth of your son, Matthew.
Parenting is definitely one of the hardest but most rewarding adventures there is. Enjoy.
March 30th, 2009
12:06 pm
Congratulations to you both and welcome to Michael.
March 30th, 2009
12:12 pm
Once again, my congratulations!!
March 30th, 2009
12:13 pm
A very BIGGG congratulations to you and your family.
March 30th, 2009
12:21 pm
Congratulations. Much lifelong success, little guy.
March 30th, 2009
12:24 pm
Congrats Bryan on a very precious gift. I wondered why you disappeared from SES but Jeffery mentioned that you had to rush to the hospital.
March 30th, 2009
12:32 pm
Bryan,
Congrats to you and your family on the new addition. All the best!
March 30th, 2009
12:37 pm
Mazel Tov to all Bryan!
March 30th, 2009
1:02 pm
Bryan, a huge congratulation! And thank you for the wisdom you offered.
March 30th, 2009
1:13 pm
Congratulations Bryan! To you and your wife. And Welcome Matthew! We look forward to your first tweet!
March 30th, 2009
1:18 pm
Awwww…..
Congratulations!
March 30th, 2009
1:40 pm
The Texas Monthly had a story about an older man who was a father again after putting his earlier bunch through college. At his age, he could look back and see that they turn out well regardless of his mistakes.
March 30th, 2009
1:47 pm
Congratulations Bryan!!
¡Bienvenido Matthew!
March 30th, 2009
1:50 pm
Congrats.
If only bringing up the kids was as “easy” as marketing!
Make sure you take plenty of time off work to enjoy the little fella
March 30th, 2009
9:16 pm
Congrats to all! The great thing is with more than one kid you can start to run split tests
March 30th, 2009
9:18 pm
Congratulations….great name, but hey I am a little biased.
March 31st, 2009
1:58 am
Mathew, welcome to the planet. You are going to hate it here, you are going to love it here! But there’s nothin like this blub of rock this side of the galaxy.
March 31st, 2009
10:36 am
Congratulations, Bryan – that’s great news!
March 31st, 2009
1:36 pm
congratulations… wishes much love for your family
April 1st, 2009
2:48 am
Congratulations Brian from the UK. All the best to you and the rest of the family.I hope the sleepless nights to come won’t be too bad. But then I hear you’re an early bird anyway.
David
April 1st, 2009
5:00 pm
Congratulations! I’ve seen that you make a great dad and Im sure that you’ve continued to optimize your parenting.
Mathew, welcome and enjoy the benefits of being a third born child (like me).
April 1st, 2009
7:59 pm
Congratulations. Three is a great number for kids. That is what we have and they certainly keep you busy.
April 7th, 2009
10:21 am
Having a child is such a wonderful gift. I wish you and your family a whole world of happiness Bryan. Take care.
April 26th, 2009
10:53 pm
Congratulations and welcome to Matthew. Fun times ahead!
May 4th, 2009
4:20 pm
[...] and speed of execution. It is better to get some thing up and out the door even if it is flawed (and it always will be) than to wait and deliberate and evaluate to consider doing something. You can win games even if [...]