The Magic of Doing Things

A note I shared with our team in a book we created for our 2023 offsite.

John Peterson · 2023

When I grew up, boredom was truly boring. Imagine sitting on the couch with nothing to do, and the room is silent. No smartphone. No Netflix. No laptop. So, I'd visit a friend's house and hang out. Go to the park and play soccer. Head to the beach and read a book. Boredom forced us to meet up with people and do things.

Bored today? Scroll Insta. Watch HBO. Scroll Insta while watching HBO. Boredom is not so boring anymore, so we do things with people less often. And it's a bad trade: Americans were happier before the internet existed. Is this our inevitable fate - superior boredom for less happy people? Hell no. We believe that as a technology company, making life easy is not enough - it is our duty to make life better.

Our mission at The Nudge is to help people do things. It's a hard mission, but we do it because we believe in humanity. When we look at Nudgers, we don't see lazy people.

We see someone overcoming their nerves to kiss their crush under a street lamp. We see someone's satisfied smile at the end of a hike they were this close to bailing on, but didn't. We see human beings with the strength to live an exciting life of their own, not just watch someone else's on a screen.

We'll never know most of the people we serve - get the chance to shake their hands and hear their stories. But we know that paths that would have grown over will be walked, relationships that would have faded will rekindle, and wine will be sipped, symphonies heard, and sunrises admired that, without our work, would have been merely the start of another day.

There's magic in doing things. And it is one of the great honors of my life to, with this team, help people find it.

John Peterson