Author / Nathan Coumbe

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Posts by Nathan Coumbe

My mission is to learn, inform, inspire, and improve. I am a passionate teacher, an avid writer, a leader of people, and a strategic thinker. Wherever I am, whatever the work I am called to do, my goal is the same: make my little corner of the world better for everyone in it. To do this, I ask better questions and solve more interesting problems for those I serve. Think deeply. Think often. Keep exploring. Always be curious.
by Nathan Coumbe

Is your work artistic?

Do you have to be skilled with words, a paintbrush, or a musical instrument before you can call yourself an artist?

What about our work in the business world? Can marketing, sales, or leadership be artistic endeavors? It depends on your definition of art. 

Art is the act of creation. What you create doesn’t determine whether or not you’re artistic. 

Seth Godin defines art as “creating change in another person for the better.” 

If that’s our definition of art, then marketing, sales, leadership, customer service, and every other potential job we have is artistic…

But only if we take the leap and use our work to make people better.  

You are already an artist. Focus on creating change rather than your medium. 

by Nathan Coumbe

You have more than one shot

50 years ago, you had to stage a grand opening to the masses to your event or business. 

If you wanted to open a store, you banked a lot of money (usually borrowed), on the fact that you had to get a lot of customers right away, or you’d go bust.

So you’d hype everyone up. You’d send out mailers, run TV commercials, tell everyone you knew to spread the word to your friends. 

Hype, hype, hype!

Then you’d hold the grand opening with those big scissors and red tape (metaphorical or otherwise). And it would either succeed—you’d make the money you needed to stay afloat.

Or it would fail, and you’d potentially go bankrupt. 

We still have that “one-shot” mentality today. Whether it’s starting a business, writing a song, publishing a book, whatever—we still feel like we’ve got one shot to succeed. 

That everything hinges on one big moment where either everyone hears about it…or they don’t and you fail. 

The reality is, the internet has made the grand opening both unnecessary and obsolete. 

If you write something that doesn’t perform well, so what?! You can show up and do it again tomorrow… and do it better. 

If you start a business, but don’t get any traction, so what? The stakes for failing in a digital business are minuscule compared to what it used to be. 

You don’t need grand openings anymore. You don’t need hundreds or thousands of customers and followers right away to be successful. 

You now have unlimited chances to attract the people you want to serve. Failing is often free. 

Start small, serve well, and let it grow over time. That’s the key to succeeding in the modern age. 

by Nathan Coumbe

Deeply important

by Nathan Coumbe

Creativity and permission

I was walking at the park near my house this afternoon. And when I crossed the bridge, walking the well-known paths I’ve memorized, I saw a picnic table next to the river where no table had ever been before. 

It’s at the perfect place where you can hear the water splashing over the tiny spillway under the bridge—a light, pleasant gurgling and rushing sound that’s quite pleasing to the ears.

From the looks of it, somebody went out and bought treated pine from a home improvement store, built it themselves, and set it up in this spot. 

They didn’t ask permission. They simply thought that this little neck of the woods would benefit from having a place for people to sit… A place to gather and eat next to the water with family and friends in peace and near-quiet.

This was a small, brave, creative act. They didn’t ask permission from the Parks Department to let them do it. They saw a way to make something a little better for other people, and they did it. 

They took a small creative risk. That’s what we were asked to do on a daily basis. 

No one ever gives us permission to be creative. No one will ever give us permission to make things better. 

Because the way things are right now is the status quo. And people don’t want the status quo to change. So we have to create—to make things better—without asking if it’s okay. 

It takes a little bit of courage, the tiniest amount of risk, and the will to act.

by Nathan Coumbe

Build integrity like a muscle

Integrity simply means keeping promises you make—both to yourself and others. 

It’s almost like a muscle, something that must be stretched and strained so that it can grow bigger and stronger over time. 

The best way to develop integrity is to start making tiny promises to yourself, then follow through with them. 

Every time you schedule or write down a task…

  • Writing a blog post
  • Taking a 20-minute walk
  • Eating a serving of vegetables with dinner

…you’re giving yourself the potential to build your integrity muscle. 

Then, when you follow through on those tiny commitments, your sense of integrity gets stronger. 

Soon you’ll be able to make bigger and bigger promises to yourself and others.

But most importantly, you’ll have trained yourself to follow through. 

That’s how you become a person of integrity: one tiny promise at a time.

What’s one small thing can you promise yourself today?

by Nathan Coumbe

Are you flip-flopping? Good.

This is the primary sign of being a mature, well-balanced adult:

The ability—AND WILLINGNESS—to change your mind about something you believe or hold dear in the face of new information.

You’ll be ridiculed for it. You’ll be called a “flip-flopper“. But so what?

You’re growing and learning, adapting and changing. That’s all that matters.

by Nathan Coumbe

The inauthentic hero

The people we admire most are the ones who act the most inauthentic in the moment. 

Being authentic: the idea that you should do or say whatever it is you’re thinking or feeling in the moment. This is what we glorify. 

Vs.

Being inauthentic: doing things we’d rather not. Doing them because we promised we would. Doing things regardless of how we feel in the moment.

War heroes, the type of people we admire for their bravery and selfless acts, are those who act decidedly inauthentic in the moment. 

If they were being authentic—when the rounds cracked overhead or the grenade dropped in the middle of their buddies—they’d run as fast and far away as they could. 

But instead, they make a conscious decision to act despite how they feel in the moment. They run towards the sound of battle, or throw themselves on the grenade to save their friends. 

They do these things despite feeling terrified, exhausted, or pained. And we admire them for that. 

We admire the same traits in people from all walks of life: athletes, leaders, writers, musicians.

We want them to do what they signed up to do. Imagine going to a concert where the musician didn’t play because “they just didn’t feel like it” when they got on stage.

So, in fact, we don’t want authenticity. We want professionalism, decency, integrity—for people to keep the promises they make… To do the things that need doing regardless of how they’re feeling in the moment. 

In terms of behavior, authenticity leads to tantrums and inaction. 

Inauthenticity, on the other hand, leads to professionalism. 

(H/t to Seth Godin for inspiring this post.) 

by Nathan Coumbe

The weeds don’t need your help

If you leave a garden unattended, weeds will grow in abundance.

They do best when left alone. They don’t need any nurturing, nutrients, watering, or attention from you. They’ll grow just fine on their own.

But if you want a garden full of beautiful flowers or delicious fruits and vegetables, you must be intentional.

You must dig, plant, water, fertilize, nurture… And rip up the weeds by the root!

The same is true for the thoughts in your head, the story you’re telling yourself on a daily basis.

The negative thoughts are weeds.

“I can’t…”

“They won’t let me…”

“This won’t work…”

“I’ve failed before so why should I try again?”

“I’m not good enough…”

These thoughts will spring up naturally and strangle the garden of your mind if you sit idly. And they’ll take over without any action on your part.

So, just like with the garden in your backyard, you must be intentional and put in the difficult, caring work. Rip out the weedy thoughts by the roots. Replace them with the good stuff, whatever that is for you.

Positive mental attitudes, affirmations, visualizations… Or my favorite: someone else’s encouraging words playing on repeat in your head. (I’d recommend starting here.)

Whatever you want to grow in your mind, treat it with the same care and attention you would with a beautiful garden of your own.

by Nathan Coumbe

“Form” follows “function” for a reason

Anyone who’s creative will tell you they often get lost in the weeds of their project. But the “why” and the “what” behind your work are much more important than the “how”.

And yet, we often get stuck trying to fit our message into a medium that it might not be well-suited for.

“I’m a writer,” we say to ourselves. So when we get to a piece of content that might better serve our audience in a video format, we balk. Or we turn a blog post into a book…

“I’m a drummer,” a musician might say, so she believes it’s the only way she can create music… No need to pick up that guitar or try to pluck out a melody on the piano, thank you very much!

The form doesn’t matter as long as it serves the content and the audience. That means you don’t have to be a blogger, a writer, a podcaster, or a coach forever.

As long as you are doing something to spread your message, how you do it is irrelevant.

by Nathan Coumbe

Long-held beliefs

“We’ve always done it this way…”

The phrase everyone hates to hear when they’re trying to make a difference. Or do something that could make things better. 

Long-held beliefs, the “regular” way of doing things… These are just examples of the status quo doing what the status quo does. 

If you look back far enough, at anything that’s become accepted as “normal,” you’ll find that the status quo was once new and radical too…

And that means one thing: “the way it’s always been done,” is NOT the way it’s always been done.