The underrated rewards of cold-calling

🌙 It’s Monday, or in Old English mōndæg (“moon’s day”). In fact, several languages have a moon embedded in their word for today, including French (Lundi, Latin for lune + dies) and Japanese (月曜日, “day of the moon”).
Issue #94: personal (not social) media, university shut-downs, and when your skills don’t match your vision
By Harris Sockel

In 1989, photojournalist Tom Zimberoff cold-called Skywalker Ranch, George Lucas’s 4,700-acre home office. The Ranch is its own small city complete with a fire station, vineyards, a fitness center, and an “Ewok lake” (sans actual Ewoks).

Lucas picked up: “This is George, what can I do for you?”

In one of my favorite stories on Medium or anywhere else, Zimberoff describes what happens next: He begs Lucas to do a photoshoot. Zimberoff’s work is about to be shown in a gallery, and he’s desperate to get a portrait of the cinema legend. Zimberoff ratchets up the tension, apologizing for “the narrow window of opportunity we had for a photoshoot — like right now!” and then makes a direct ask: “Will you let me photograph you?”

You’ll find the resulting photo in Zimberoff’s story. You’ll also learn how it came together through a combination of chance, skill, and using whatever resources you can find around you (like a little green Yoda hanging out in the Ranch’s reception area). It’s similar to the story behind Zimberoff’s photo of the late U.S. Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O’Connor, or this enigmatic portrait of John Lennon he captured three years after the Beatles broke up.

Zimberoff’s success getting Lucas to agree was luck, but he also put himself in a position to be lucky. He took a calculated risk and made a specific, direct ask, something we can all take inspiration from this week.

What else we’re reading

• Evan Sharp, who co-founded Pinterest in 2009 and led it to become a publicly traded company valued at over $25 billion, is stepping down from its board. On Medium, he shares a few behind-the-scenes photos and reflects on what makes Pinterest special: “It is personal, not social, media.”
• Every week, a college or university shuts down due to declining enrollment. U.S. enrollment has decreased 15% since 2010, from nearly 30 million to under 25 million, as high-schoolers begin to doubt the value of college. Last week, after Philadelphia’s 148-year-old University of the Arts abruptly shut down, alum Lou Caltabiano turned to Medium, writing: “Community-building is the greatest part of a college education.”
• Benefits of learning a new language: a sharper memory and ability to connect disparate ideas — plus, as humanities professor Kathleen Curtin Do describes, letting go of pride and getting comfortable making mistakes.

Your daily dose of practical wisdom: about skill vs. vision

If you’re trying to make something that isn’t living up to your expectations, be patient. What you’re feeling is the gap between your vision (perfection, magnificence, beauty!) and your skills, which are still a work in progress. Keep going.

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Edited and produced by Scott Lamb & Carly Rose Gillis

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