Words: Merlin, Interviewed About His “One Thing”

One Thing blog - Merlin Mann: my one thing is…

Here’s a quick, three-question interview I did for a swell Tumblr Eric Yoon runs called, “One Thing.” Neat idea, and as ever, I’m always happy for the opportunity to think out loud:

Q: There’s a saying, to pick one thing and do it well. What’s your one thing?

Merlin: If I do my job well, I get people excited about doing things they didn’t think they could do. As we get older, it’s not unusual for our idea of who and what we are to get a little stiff—calcified. Which is a bummer. I love when I can share my enthusiasm with someone, maybe make him or her laugh, and, on the best days, I help them realize we’re all weirdly capable of doing interesting and challenging stuff — as long as we quit just thinking and dive fearlessly into trying. Thinking is, for the most part, for suckers. In fact, I suspect you’d have an easy time finding people who agree that “not thinking” is something I’m kind of great at. :-)

Q: What do you like about what you do?

Merlin: Unfortunately, I’m both a terrible employee and a useless manager, so I love that I get to work for myself, and, more often than not, on my own. Since this leaves me wholly responsible for every failure (and the occasional, modest success) this can be existentially harrowing, but I’m at a point now where I can’t imagine having it any other way. I also love that what I do is so poorly defined. It means that, like my childhood beagle, Shorty, I can follow my nose, sniff out something interesting, paw and gnaw at it for a while — maybe even bury it for a few weeks — then come back and I’m just as excited as I was when I found it. Particularly dead birds, large bones, and ladies’ shoes.

Q: Anything else you’d like to add?

Merlin: Sure. I think it’s fun to try having more interesting mistakes. We all worry about looking dumb or not succeeding completely, and that makes us timid. It’s a sane impulse, but I love the days when I ignore that impulse. For example, I’m unusually busy today and threw out most of my email at a pass. But, I saw this nice message, and I didn’t throw it away, and although this response is far from the best thing I’ve ever written, I’m really happy I jumped on it. Life’s full of weird shit like that. Which is awesome.

Thanks a million, Eric. Very happy you asked me.