No #172 | June 8, 2025

by Matthew Boyd

Good morning, welcome to the weekly Lead It Cool newsletter.

Saw this quote at a random coffee shop yesterday:

A yawn is a silent scream for coffee.

☕😆

In this week's Lead It Cool newsletter:

• 🕺Learning to Dance
• 😲"And Then..."
• 👗Fashion Icon Advice👗
• 🍖BBQ Season
• 😎Cool Links

🕺Learning to Dance 🕺

A couple of weeks ago, I included this in my newsletter:

The next day, I got an email from my wife — forwarded from our daughter's dance studio director. They were organizing a Dad’s dance routine for the big year-end performance and looking for volunteers.

Well that's a "hard thing".

I have never done any type of choreographed dance in my life. The closest thing was the first dance at my wedding. (Side note: our first dance was to Lionel Richie’s Say You, Say Me)

When I asked my daughter whether I should do it, I could instantly tell that if I said no, I would regret it for the rest of my life.

So I said yes. And for the past three weeks, I’ve been going to the dance studio, learning a routine with about 25 other dads — none of whom have danced before either. It has been quite the adventure.

Here’s what I’ve learned so far:

• Practice makes perfect. When I first saw the routine, I nearly vomited in fear. But it’s incredible how your brain can learn anything through practice and repetition (and peer pressure).
• It’s a great workout. The time flies during practice, and I’m completely exhausted afterward.
• It’s the ultimate icebreaker. If you want a bunch of strangers to become fast friends, teach them a group dance routine.
• The running man dance movie is surprisingly harder than it looks.

Lastly, since my daughter has been a competitive dancer, I’ve never been able to offer her much advice — my expertise in the area is, shall we say, limited (“Go break a leg…”).

Unlike with my son, who plays basketball and gets an earful of feedback and tactical advice from me after every game.

Now that I’ve gone through this experience, I’m hoping I can share a little more of the dance adventure with her😊.

Our big performance is next weekend. I’ll report back on how it goes!

😲"And Then..."

I really enjoyed this podcast between Farnam Street and Matthew Dicks on storytelling.

The idea of connecting your stories with "and" made me smile. Every year, I go on a camping trip with friends and their kids, and when it gets dark, we all take turns telling ghost stories to try to scare each other. The younger kids always use the "and then" approach — and their stories inevitably spiral into absolute chaos and hilarity😂.

👗Fashion Icon Advice

David Senra posted the top take-aways from fashion icon Anna Wintour's biography on X.

Here are my favorite ones from this list:

👂Your employees should describe you as "easy to understand".

⏰If you're not early, you're late.

✅Get to the point.

⏩Make decisions quickly.

💪Passion, purpose and discipline are universally admired.

👋Be the first to leave.

♻️Repetition is the foundation of clarity of thought.

🏄Don't try to handle stress. Learn to enjoy it.

🦄Taste is as rare as unicorn.

🍖BBQ Season

Yes😂. This is my routine with steaks.

😎Cool Links

👔It's never been harder to dress for work. Just ask Gen Z. In practice, the young professionals learned what to wear not from written guidelines, but by mirroring what those around them wore, slowly building up their go-to attire.

✉️Which Inbox? It’s easier than ever to fall into an inbox mindset. There are things to do, and we do them. Inbox zero is the unattainable goal that fills our days. But it avoids the real question, which is: which inbox are we emptying?

🤔AirBNB CEO Brian Chesky Wants to Build the Everything App. I started thinking to myself, I don’t believe the biggest asset in people’s lives is their home. It’s their time. There was a book written about Amazon called The Everything Store, but it probably should be parenthetically called “Everything in a Cardboard Box Store.” It’s not actually everything, and in fact, more and more of the economy is moving to services and eventually experiences, and we just thought this was an incredible opportunity for the company because when it comes to travel, more people stay in hotels than homes.

🚶‍♀️For a better workout, walk with hiking poles. Put simply, poles can help you walk easier, faster and farther. One small study found that walking with poles increased the amount of oxygen and calories subjects used by more than 20 percent.

🙄Dark retreats, so hot right now. Typically, a darkness retreat consists of several days alone in a room in complete darkness and silence. Participants are delivered three meals through a hatch that maintains the darkness in their dwellings, which also each contain a bed, bath, and flushing toilet. They can leave simply by opening the door, and they can also break their silence to chat with the facilitators at two intervals throughout the day when they come to the door to check on them and bring the food.

💌Tell a friend to subscribe​

Thank you!

Let’s connect! 💬 You can find me on LinkedIn and Twitter