Addictive stories and embarrassing tell-alls from the front lines of online business. Written by reformed girlboss who learned a better way. Read by 10K+ consenting adults.
Diary of a work trip to Denmark
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Spend Three Days With Me To Denmark Hey, Reader. Something different today! Last week I flew to Odense, Denmark to give a keynote at Email Summit. I was mentally writing you this email all week, and managed to capture most of the good stuff on paper. Let me know if you dig this sort of real-time recap. Next week I’ll be traveling to Nashville to lead a song circle at Kate Northrup’s Relaxed Money Live. Make sure to hit “reply” and say hello if you’ll be there too. Enjoy! Monday eve (night before departure): Trying on my stage outfit in the final hour. Looks all wrong. My body has changed and nothing fits right. Crisis! My kids keep running in asking me to make them ice cream, taking zero notice of the bright orange suitcase splayed open on the bed, or the clothes and shoes scattered all over the bedroom. I text a pic of my proposed outfit to my friend Rhiannon who’s been everywhere and will know what to do. “Europeans don’t really do athleisure,” she informs me, then tells me how to fix my outfit. Tuesday afternoon: At 2:30pm I power down my computer and walked straight out the door where my boyfriend is waiting with my stuff already loaded in the car. What a gift to be in a “drive each other to the airport” relationship. I feel lucky. Practicing my talk in the car - only my second time running it in full - I start feeling nervous. The ending is still very average, and this adage has been echoing in my head for weeks: People only remember the high point, and how it ends. Tuesday eve / Wednesday morning? (time is a blur!): Flying through Reykjavik and on to Copenhagen, my seat mates get approved for transfer to the emergency exit row. I sprawl across three seats and sleep a whole four hours! Odense is a 90-minute train ride from Copenhagen. It’s at least ten degrees warmer than Canada, and I don’t see a single car on the 8-minute walk to my hotel. It’s all trains, bikes and people walking on brickwork so beautiful it begs to be photographed. After a 20-minute Yoga Nidra nap, I take a sunset walk to help reset my body clock, then hit the gym. Wednesday dinner: How is it Wednesday night? Time makes no sense. In my Rhiannon-approved speaker dinner outfit, I cross the street to the huge arts centre where the conference is being held. Speakers, sponsors, and a few attendees are gathered for a meet and greet. They’re smart e-commerce people, talking about email using words I don’t understand. Something about automated product-led retargeting using conditional content. Um, what now? Why isn’t this guy the closing keynote speaker? He seems much smarter than me. But I don’t get carried away with thoughts like that. I’m smart too, plus I’m funny. The hosts only make one request from me. “Talk to the Danes,” they say. How sweet. I make that my mission. Wednesday night: I crash at 9:30pm and sleep a full eight hours. No small miracle. “I don’t do jet lag,” I think to myself, channeling my old friend Kim. I’m purposefully not doing the math on what time it is back home. I just reset my phone to 24-hour time and get on with it. Thursday morning (day of conference): Breakfast is a serve-yourself affair with everything laid out in beautiful Le Creuset pots, which I have to fight the urge to photograph. I take a sunrise walk before attending two talks in the morning, taking notes on bits I can reference in my talk. All the other talks are in Danish so I head back to my hotel for another nap, grab some lunch, then go to the gym. By now I’ve told at least six people I’m hitting the gym right before my talk. For the accountability, but also for the thrill of being the sort of person who does that. At some point it occurs to me that danishes must be Danish. Weird it took me forty-one years to make this connection. Thursday afternoon: Blasting my 4-song “play this at my funeral” Spotify playlist, which is surprisingly upbeat, I crank the Stairmaster up to eight and sweat it out in the new gym shorts and running shoes I bought yesterday because I forgot to pack them. The perfect ending to my talk lands in my brain about four minutes in. THIS IS WHY I WORKOUT, MAN! I jump off the Stairmaster and onto the treadmill where it’s easier to take notes on my phone. At the final hour, it’s all coming together. Thirty minutes to go: Freshly showered and made up - I’ve done my makeup more times in the last 24 hours than I have in the last six months! - I head to the theatre, where the AV guy Yannick is patient while I give him yet more instructions about how I want the confidence monitor to look, and how to time my opening and closing music. Yannick is patient, running to the storage closet to get the extra cables and things needed to get it just right. I hope the M.C. remembers to tee up one of my jokes like I asked. These last minute preparations keep me so busy I don’t even have time to be nervous. Pretty soon he’s saying my name and it’s time to walk on stage. On stage! I take a risk walking on stage to Oh My Goodness, Look At This Mess! by Sweet Honey In The Rock. It’s a bust! Hardly anyone laughs and my mouth goes instantly dry. But I’m okay. I have other jokes coming, potential high-point moments and half a dozen Danish references, from Kierkegaard and The Cardigans. My body feels loose and alive on stage. Haven’t I been doing this since my first piano recital at three years old? I wave my arms and deliver an animated 45-minute talk on how to write engaging onboarding emails. I reference Joanna Wiebe’s talk from this morning, as well as my new friend Eimentas who presented earlier. Some of my jokes get laughs. Some don’t. I’m taking extensive mental notes. Before long I’m gliding toward the close. “If you want to stand out from everyone else,” I tell them, “then you have to do something different from everyone else. That means taking risks now and then.” “Like that song I walked on stage to,” I say, singing a few bars to remind them. “That was a risk. Honestly? I thought you guys would laugh more. But it’s okay. Not every risk will work out, that’s why it’s a risk. So let’s practice by taking a little risk here together. Would everybody stand up, please?” The whole room stands up, all 550 of them. “I won’t ask you to dance like no one’s watching because that’s bullshit,“ I say, and they laugh. “We’re going to dance to a song from my funeral playlist, just for, like, thirty seconds, so you can experience a small risk. DJ, are you ready?” I look toward Yannick, who gives me the thumbs up. “Hit it,” I tell him, and Green, Green Grass by George Ezra starts playing at full volume. The crowd laughs and starts clapping along, while I dance across the stage like 550 people are watching, which is to say, enthusiastically if not gracefully. OMG DOES IT FEEL GOOD TO BE DONE! The relief is as good as the compliments from the attendees and host. I’ve had this on my calendar since September—four months of fretting about what it would be like, when I would find time to figure out what to say, and how to give a talk good enough to be invited back or to get a referral. I think I did it. Thursday night: I order dinner from room service and watch Netflix in bed, completely pooched. At 6:30pm, my makeup scrubbed off, I’m now cursing my friend Rhiannon. I would positively KILL for just one piece of athleisure to put on as I head to Kunstmuseum Brandts to see the Overtaci exhibit. I stay until an attendant taps me on the shoulder and says the museum will be closing in one minute. The rest of the trip: I have one day in Odense just for me. I don’t like being away from my kids too long, so I’m usually on a flight home right after. But c’mon, this is a completely paid-for trip to Denmark! I rent a bike and spend the day snapping photos of bike signs asking ChatGPT to interpret. I spend a full two hours at Hans Christian Anderson Hus before heading back to Kunstmuseum Brandts to buy a poster, then on to spend thirty dollars on an epic amount of salty licorice. Lunch is at Storms Pakhus, where they have a hipster warehouse full of street food vendors. By 6pm I speak fluent Bike Sign, except for the directional signs that make NO SENSE WHATSOEVER. But when you consider the way the city is laid out, I guess it does? I eat dinner at the hotel bar and then go to a concert, a celebration of Black Voices that is happening right across the street from my hotel, featuring 5 singers and a 6-piece band. I know Denmark loves me and that my life is on the right path when - you will not believe this - the show ends with an epic performance of ONE OF THE OTHER THREE SONGS ON MY FUNERAL PLAYLIST!!!, River Deep, Mountain High by Tina Turner. My last act in Denmark? While waiting at the gate for my flight, I finally spot a real-life authentic “danish.” The bakery uses the English label “cinnamon bun with cream” but the Danish word is spandauer. This one has vanilla custard and just a hint of cardamon. It might be the most delicious pastry I’ve ever tasted. For the entire plane ride home I keep picking cardamon seeds out of my teeth, feeling extremely grateful. I pinched myself a million times during this trip. You get paid to do this, Tarzan. Don’t you dare forget ever again what a blessing this is. My business has given me many gifts, but this one felt particularly special, like all the hard parts were worth it. I hope you shared a little of my joy in this email, and maybe think about what gifts your business has given to you, or what might be in store. Hit “reply” if you feel like sharing just one. Until next time, Tarzan
P.S. Don’t forget to rate this email using the links below. It helps me gauge if you like this type of email, or if you just want me to give you “do this, then that” advice about email.
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Addictive stories and embarrassing tell-alls from the front lines of online business. Written by reformed girlboss who learned a better way. Read by 10K+ consenting adults.