The Profession That Makes Everyone Else Look Great - with Heather Campbell

Try this at your next industry conference: ask a communicator when they last looked at a piece of work and said "that was good," and stopped there. No "but."

Chances are you'll get a blank stare, because we spend our careers making CEOs, brands, and clients look great, and somewhere along the way we started grading ourselves on the same curve: great work, great campaigns, the trophy wall. And now that AI has turned "do more with less" into "do everything by end of day," nobody seems to have paused to ask what "more" actually means, or who decided that good wasn't enough.

In this episode of The Trending Communicator, Dan Nestle talks with Heather A. Campbell, author of Good Is Amazing: Stop Over-Striving and Celebrate Being Enough and CEO and co-founder of Ready Set Recover. Heather's argument is simple and, for a room full of overachievers, a little uncomfortable: we've maligned the word good, we treat it as code for "do better," and the main character of your life (that's you) gets to decide what good is.

The conversation ranges from the grandfather at Harley-Davidson who taught Heather how to move an audience without a title, to the phone call from her mom that ended with a request to become President of the United States, to the McKinsey interview she turned down before it happened. Along the way, Dan and Heather land on why AI-written prose so often reads as "asshole adjacent" (her developmental editor's phrase, and a keeper), why "don't let perfect be the enemy of good" is something we say and never do, and what it means to name your inner critic (hers is called Blanche).

Listen in and hear about...

• Why the question "so what are you going to do after graduation?" sounds like judgment, and how to answer it on your own terms
• The moment Heather decided her only career goal was to be happy, healthy, and good
• Turning down a McKinsey interview, and what a shaky lump of clay on a pottery wheel had to do with it
• Why "don't let perfect be the enemy of good" fails when your actions ask for four more revisions
• What AI is doing to our perception of good and great, and why the output so often sounds like a jerk
• Blanche, the inner critic, and the three small things that make you happy

Notable Quotes

"The problem with the question though is it sounds like judgment and it doesn't sound like a question. It sounds like, prove to me that you are actually going to be able to be successful." - Heather Campbell [11:33 → 12:19]

"We've maligned the word good. We think of good as bad." - Heather Campbell [30:16 → 30:32]

"What if no one else was looking, if no one else was ever going to ask about it, praise you, or if no one else cared? Do you still care about it? Because if not, maybe it's not your thing." - Heather Campbell [32:39 → 32:54]

"In some ways, it doesn't matter if you've reached good or if you've reached amazing. If you're not happy with it, if you're not comfortable with it, if you always think there's more, it doesn't matter." - Heather Campbell [42:51 → 43:27]

"AI is a tool. It's a tool. But you don't have to just relinquish your ability. You're good communicators, people. You guys do this for a living. People pay you money to do this." - Heather Campbell [01:02:23 → 01:03:24]

Resources and Links

Dan Nestle

• Lilypath | Website
• The Trending Communicator | Website
• Communications Trends from Trending Communicators | Dan Nestle's Substack
• Dan Nestle | LinkedIn

Heather A. Campbell

• Heather A. Campbell | Website
• Heather A. Campbell | LinkedIn
• Ready Set Recover | Website
• Good Is Amazing: Stop Over-Striving and Celebrate Being Enough | Amazon

Timestamps

[00:15] The cost of "great" and perfectionism in communications

[02:00] Heather's background at ESPN building the Synergy team

[08:29] Heather's epiphany: choosing happiness over greatness

[11:02] The loaded question young graduates face

[17:20] Non-linear career path and following values

[18:36] Husband quits job to pursue entrepreneurship

[24:01] Going to NYU business school and the pottery essay

[27:17] Taking classes based on interest, not grades

[28:01] Getting rejected letter from NYU, switching to management major

[30:15] Redefining what "good" actually means

[36:58] Turning down McKinsey offer

[42:25] Confidence and self-awareness as keys to accepting "good enough"

[50:07] Naming your inner critic (Blanche)

[53:28] Direct response ad example: white space strategy

[56:50] AI-generated content sounds "asshole adjacent"

[01:00:08] AI as a tool, not a replacement for judgment

[01:02:24] Final advice: Own your narrative, define your own "good"

[01:03:56] Three things that make you happy framework

[01:07:17] Book and resources information (Notes co-created by Human Dan, Claude, and Fireflies)

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