Permission To Nerd Out

The best (office/team) cultures come from people who know their passion is worth developing. 

There's this thing that often happens when I'm working. If I have a stretch of uninterrupted time (a luxury these days with two little ones underfoot) I find myself sinking into a rhythm of productivity.  Answering emails while rendering an image, crossing things off our digital To Do List while a fresh pot of coffee brews, slight head bobbing while Gramatik plays in the background.

I was recently making a training video and I found myself narrating a certain process for a new team member (hi Nicole!). As I played back part of the video to make sure the duration was captured, I heard these phrases from myself repeatedly:

"No... I don't like that... oh wait... there... that's rad, right? Yeah... that's how we're leaving that."

"Perfect... doesn't that just look cool? Doesn't that look way better?"

“Oh man... that’s sweet, is that sweet or what? Get excited, because that’s done now.”

Even for repetitive, mundane tasks like processing a new contract, I said things like "boom... doesn't that just make good sense?" and "Easy as pie- now we're rolling".

At first, I rolled my eyes at myself for being such a dork.

But then... something really fun happened.  I realized that maybe, just maybe, my excitement for work might spark my teammates excitement for work, too. Maybe my enjoyment for the process would be a tiny drop of permission for my team to enjoy work, too. Maybe the nerdy sense of pure joy I get from re-formatting a widget or even from starting an automated email campaign would remind my team that they have permission to nerd out, too.

After all, if you can’t nerd out about work in one aspect or another, you’re probably in the wrong field. 

“the best work environments usually promote some level of nerding out.”

Allowing ourselves to really dive in, to say nerdy things, to jam out to funky music while processing otherwise boring information... doesn’t this stuff make for the best kinds of moments? Don’t those moments make the best kind of days? And don’t days where you feel like an all out rock star make for good memories, and maybe even a good life?

This leads to another contagion- the permission to generally nerd out about life. 

What if you gave yourself full permission to be completely IN to whatever you were doing in this season? What if you made charts about it?
What if you created logistics about that?
What if you vision board-ed that sh*t?
What if you allowed yourself bountiful permission to sink deeply into nerdiness about whatever you need to do anyways?

So, if you need it today, you have it: full permission to be excited, to be a dork about what you do, to say nerdy things, and encourage others around you to do the same. Furthermore, In my experience, nothing kills a great work culture faster than someone who’s “just too cool for all this stuff”. 

So go. Get the pens that make you giddy to write meetings in a planner, download the new software you think would make your process more fun, subscribe to that Skillshare app to develop that area of work you’ve been dying to conquer. Just do it. It’s what takes the work out of work, after all.

As always, if you’re looking for a team of nerds to help you manage or expand your digital presence, get in touch and let’s see if we can nerd out together.