The Nintendo 64 Is Making Me Feel Old

This is from my weekly email series, The Weekly Mixtape. I’d appreciate it if you did this right and subscribed. And don’t forget to check your Spam folder for the confirmation email!

This last week I started teaching undergraduate students in class for the first time. I’ve taught online classes and classes through Zoom to students seeking Master’s Degrees, but this is my first time in this particular situation. And so far, it’s made me feel old.

The catalyst was when I was walking through campus and I saw a student wearing a Nintendo 64 shirt. I kept walking, and thinking. By the time I got to the classroom, I had a realization…these students were all BORN after the Nintendo 64 came out! That shirt would be to celebrate what their parents (or maybe older siblings) enjoyed when it was released.

It would be just as retro for them as the Atari shirt I bought while I was in high school (and somehow still manage to have, though it has seen better days).

I’ve been on my entrepreneurial journey for a while, though it has really only started in earnest for about a month. Trying to get The Indiepreneur up and running. Running in the background to work on LDGR (which I’m almost ready to fully announce, though the website has the basic idea). And it’s easy to get a bit discouraged through it all. The common term is “Imposer Syndrome,” that doubt questioning if I can do any of this.

The Nintendo 64 shirt made me feel old as I walked into that class. But it also made me realize–at least for a moment–that I actually have some idea what I’m doing here. I have years of experience putting together tax returns and working with businesses, so of course I can do it without someone looking over my shoulder and writing the checks.

I hope.

It’s a feeling that fades as doubt and insecurities creep back in. But I’m still pressing forward, thinking about that N64 shirt and telling myself, “You’ve got this.”

Have you had that imposter syndrome feeling? How did you get past it, or was it always something creeping around in the back of your mind?

The Links

• My latest: Did you know that a major cause of The Renaissance was the Black Death? A severe shortage of workers forced employers to be better and people to be more creative. Will our worker shortage, combined with COVID, lead to similar benefits?
• Book Review Time! It’s not what you do, but who you help, that’s key to enjoying your job. So says Tom Rath in his very short book “Life’s Great Question”
• I was hesitant to start Star Trek: Lower Decks, but it’s turned to to be a lot of fun. If only Paramount+ didn’t suck so much.
• Finally, if anyone wants to get a gift for my wife.

Service Dog Update

Progress isn’t a straight line here. On one day, Wilson will be great. He’ll walk past all the kids on the way to school, settle right when he’s supposed to, stay by my side everywhere we go. And so on.

Then the next day he’ll lose his mind, leaping everywhere like a mad, flying poodle.

I got those days back to back. I try to jog with him every morning (he’s supposed to go for an hour walk daily to burn off the puppy energy), and I tried this new leash that goes around my waist. And it worked great! After dropping off the boy at middle school, Wilson stayed by my side virtually the whole time, with hardly a tug on the leash. I hardly realized he was there at all!

And then, the next day, he just wouldn’t calm down. If I went fast, he would dart in front of me, hopping around like Tigger. If I walked, he would pull off to the side, trying to sniff every patch of grass. No matter what I did, he wouldn’t calm the frig down.

On days like that, there’s so much doubt that we can ever get this dog where he needs to be.

Then he’ll turn it around and be good again.

Such is training life.