On feedback loops, teenagers, and building things that don’t tell you if they’re working
For most of my career I’ve created outcomes for people.
A bride wants a certain style of wedding photos. I deliver them. She cries. I know it worked. A small business wants to reach more customers. I build the strategy, run the campaigns, watch the numbers move. The loop closes. I measure, I adjust, I improve.
That feedback loop is something I built my entire professional identity around. Give me a problem, a person who wants it solved, and a way to measure whether it’s working, and I’m in my element. Twenty six years of that has made me good at it.
But for the past few years I’ve been operating in two areas where that loop doesn’t close on my timeline. And it has been quietly one of the harder things I’ve navigated.
The first is parenting teenagers.
When my kids were young, what they felt came right out of their mouths unfiltered. You always knew where you stood. Now I know what they need but also know they likely won’t accept it directly, so I have to figure out how to package it in a way that makes sense for each of them individually. And then I wait. Sometimes I get something back. Often I don’t. The loop stays open.
The second is building a software product.
I’ve been solving a specific problem for clients for over two decades. I know the need is real because I’ve lived inside it. Now I’m building a tool that makes that solution accessible to business owners who can’t afford to hire someone like me. The problem is clear. The solution is taking shape. But there are no customers yet to tell me whether it’s working. I’m shipping features into a void and trusting that the loop will eventually close.
I’m a measurer by nature. Show me what’s working and I’ll double down on it. Show me what isn’t and I’ll fix it. That’s how I’m wired. So operating without clean feedback doesn’t just feel uncomfortable, it feels like I’m flying the plane without instruments.
What I’ve had to learn is that the feedback is still there. It just shows up differently than I’m used to.
Over spring break my son made the decision on his own, without my wife or I saying a word, to get up and go to the gym instead of rotting in front of the television. It hasn’t translated into a consistent habit yet. It’s happened twice. But I’m choosing to rejoice in it. Not because two gym visits fixes anything. But because the decision came from inside him, not from us. That’s the kind of win that doesn’t show up on a dashboard. You have to be paying close enough attention to catch it.
With the software it looks like shipping a feature that gets me one step closer to delivering on what I know it needs to do. No customer told me it was good. But I can feel the distance closing between where it is and where it needs to be. That has to count for something, and I’m learning to let it.
The discipline isn’t pushing through in spite of no feedback. It’s training yourself to recognize the feedback that’s actually there. It’s recalibrating what counts as evidence that something is working.
That’s harder than it sounds for someone who spent two and a half decades with a clear scoreboard.
But I think it might be the most important thing I’m learning right now.
Are you operating somewhere right now where the feedback loop doesn’t close the way you’re used to? Parenting, building, a relationship, something else?
What have you learned to count as a win when the scoreboard goes quiet? I’m genuinely asking — reply and tell me.
