Ben's 1x1x1 - I love being the dumb beginner - May 28, 2026 🚀

For those of you that are new here, every week I send what I call a 1x1x1.
One thought from my week.
One interesting find/tool from my week.
One image from my life.

Let’s dive in 👇

Thought from the week

Being a beginner is an absolute blast.

No expectations.

No massive performance goals.

No pretending you have it all figured out.

Just pure: “Alright… let’s see what happens.”

I think it’s really easy to stay in your comfort zone and your area of genius.

You get good at something and naturally start thinking:

“I’m good at this. I should probably just keep doing this forever.”

Then slowly, without realizing it, you outsource every area where you feel inexperienced, awkward, or inefficient.

Which sounds smart.

Until one day you realize you haven’t actually learned something new in a very long time.

That’s the trap I can fall into.

Then I think about the Benjamin Franklin quote:

“Some people die at 25 and aren’t buried until 75.”

The point being: some people stop growing, risking, experimenting, and staying curious long before they actually die.

That one hits me every time.

So I try to remind myself it’s ok to be embarrassingly bad at something.

Go learn.

Go be the rookie.

Go ask dumb questions.

Go stay curious.

A recent example for me has been the marketing for Luna.

It became pretty obvious that an influencer strategy could be huge for the product.

So we started working with influencers.

After working with 20+ of them, I realized very quickly…

I was bringing a butter knife to a gun fight 😂

I had no clue what to look for.

No clue what content would actually perform.

No clue how to evaluate creators.

And it was becoming both expensive AND time intensive.

So instead of pretending I understood the game…

Time to put the beginner hat on.

Time to be the dummy in the room.

Which has now somehow led to this completely reasonable life update:

On top of everything else going on…

I am now officially a dog influencer.

In one week alone, I’ve already learned a ton about content, hooks, storytelling, retention, audience behavior, and platform dynamics.

Some people would argue this is a massive waste of time.

And honestly… they may be correct 😂

But a surprising number of the best things in my life started as random curiosity projects that looked inefficient from the outside.

Sometimes the payoff is direct.

Sometimes indirect.

Sometimes the lesson becomes useful 5 years later.

But almost every time, something good comes from staying curious.

Worst case scenario?

This will fit beautifully into the “completely unnecessary side quests” section of my resume alongside:

• Amateur winemaker
• Mountain biking newspaper founder
• Buffalo ranch guy
• Dog influencer

My message:

Be curious. Be willing to suck at something. Go have fun. Keep learning.

That mindset alone keeps you alive.

Image from my life

My diet has been pretty high octane lately with a 2 week old and a toddler.

Current nutrition plan consists primarily of:

• Coffee
• More coffee
• Whatever my toddler didn’t finish eating
• Pure survival instincts

Honestly at this point I’m less “human father” and more “caffeinated woodland creature.”

See you all next week!