In today's Far Side cartoon, we see the "You had ONE JOB!" meme at play long before it became a meme.

The king has ordered a moat be built for the protection of the people, and for the good of society.

The man hired to build the moat has indeed done what was asked of him - albeit in a way that, let's just say is not efficacious.

He's building the moat within the castle walls. Not exactly effective at keeping would-be intruders at bay, right?

So who's at fault here?

Is it the king's obligation to specify where the moat should be built? 

Shouldn't it be assumed that it needs to be built outside the walls?

Perhaps the contractor misunderstood the instructions, and wanting to honor his king's instructions, did the job faithfully to the best of his abilities.

I guess we'll never know.

It is a Far Side cartoon after all. Let's not make more of it than what it's intended to be.

But it does put me in mind of how many times I've done things just because that's the way it's done. I used to beat my head against the wall when I was in the army because of the way things got done - or should I say didn't get done and put off for another day.

Many times I've done things with my podcasts for no other reason than it's what's working for someone else. Without giving a thought as to 1) whether it will work for me; and 2) why that person or group of people is even doing it in the first place.

Of course mimicry is only natural when you listen to one person long enough. You want to emulate their good qualities. But doing things by rote, without giving any thought to why it's being done drives me up a wall. It gets to the point where you realize decisions are made out of fear and insecurity vs. a genuine desire to improve one's self, be it in download numbers, video views, or even revenue.

Alright, enough virtue signaling. By the way, I'm going to feature a new Far Side cartoon each Friday in this newsletter. I do this for two reasons. 1) They're hilarious; and 2) Some of them have real substance in teachable moments. So we can look forward to that.

Second, I was quite busy the last couple of days both writing and recording a short pamphlet about the name and WHY of our business JNS Media. 

I share this with new email subscribers, but since you're already here, I want to share it with you. 

It's a short read and/or listen and will help you get to know me and the business a little bit more for when you're potentially looking for a service to produce something that has to do with clicking a button that says 'publish'.

https://jns.media/whats-in-a-name/