Author: Garth Beyer

A person buying a bottle of wine brings it to the grocery store clerk. The clerk rings it up and sees that it’s a $70 bottle of wine. The clerk is flabbergasted at the price someone would pay for a bottle of wine. The clerk cringes and nervously says the total out loud, nervous of the reaction the customer will have. “Maybe she grabbed the wrong bottle,” the clerk thinks.

There’s tension there. There’s storytelling in that moment (every word of which is from the clerk’s side so far). But none of that narrative is the guest’s.

“Here you are,” she says while handing over her credit card. And without prompt, “My friend is flying in from Italy this weekend. I haven’t seen her in years and this is the wine she has talked about missing most. I can’t wait to see the look in her eyes when I bring it out to her and the guy she is visiting with. I’m so glad you had it!”

The clerk exhales, realizing how this wine is suddenly worth much more than $70.

—

We can’t impose our stories unto others when we’re there to serve them.

Just as we need to leave egos at the door, so to we need to leave our perceptions of how we would act as the recipient of what we’re serving.

Stay Positive & It’s All About Empathy

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There are friends you have that if you text, you know will text you back right away.

There are coworkers who you know that if you email, you’ll have to follow up again in a day to get a response.

There are people who bring out a younger version of yourself every time they talk to you and others who make you think deeply with challenging life questions.

You know these people because they’ve been consistent with how they interact with you.

Others have expectations of you, too. You’ve built them up over time.

Alas, it doesn’t take too long to change perception. Surprise someone a few times with the opposite of what they expect and they’ll start to expect that from you.

We’re works in progress and there are certainly behaviors that we’d rather be known for that what we currently are.

Permission is ours.

Stay Positive & Responsibility Is, Too

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The button to restart is always there.

It’s there when you make a mistake. It’s there when something won’t work. It’s there when a relationship goes awry.

It may not be immediate like we’ve learned it to be from video game consoles and laptops; surely it takes emotional labor and a little planning, but it’s there.

When we’ve realized we’re going down the wrong path or we’re forced to pivot because of circumstances beyond our control, it’s our responsibility to press the restart button – and quickly to spare ourselves any more sunk costs.

Stay Positive & It’s A Button After All, You Know What To Do

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Folks (including myself) have belabored the behavior of prioritizing the big scary tasks first because it makes completing everything else easy and leads to you feeling fulfilled at the end of the day.

Others have supported the idea of prioritizing the little tasks so there are no distractions when you get to the big kahunas. And hey, even if you don’t, you still feel fulfilled because all the little things add up.

Few talk about simply prioritizing what you really want to do. (Note: This still requires a task or to-do list if things you may not LOVE doing.) Few talk about doing the things that would bring you the most joy, even if that joy is simply completing the task and crossing it off.

And the fun challenge here is that once you think to yourself, “there’s no way I can enjoy this” then your task becomes figuring out how to do it so it does bring you joy.

Tasks aren’t naturally miserable. We make it so with the story we tell ourselves about them.

Stay Positive & Change The Story, Change The Feeling

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You’ve likely felt it in an interview before. Two minutes in and you know how it’s going to go; whether it’s a fit or not.

Two minutes is all it takes for our mental thermometer to go off and either force us to back pedal out of a situation or to lean further in.

The scary part is that two minutes in means it’s time to take action one way or another, so it’s better to procrastinate; to not even let the mental thermometer start.

And there’s your challenge.

The thing you’ve been putting off. Go do it for two minutes. It hurts far less to backpedal out of it quickly than it does to be upset with yourself for not starting it day after day.

The best part is more often than not you either complete the task because you realize how easy it actually is or you get excited by the progress and easily dive back in the next day to continue.

Two minutes. That’s all that you need to ask of yourself.

For working out. For asking someone on a date. For doing meaningful work. For leaping. For trying something new. For learning a language or quickbooks or how to brew. For moving forward instead of standing still.

Two minutes.

Stay Positive & Time. Starts. Now.

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It boggles my mind how much goes into advertising opportunities that are here today but may not be tomorrow or in spaces that folks can pay not to have ads.

When there’s a growing discipline of choosing what gets our attention, it makes sense to update our advertising matrix to reflect it.

Riddle yourself this: If you could no longer put advertising dollars behind a tactic that you can imagine going away, where would you choose to put those dollars?

Into your people? Into your product? Into your process or R&D division? A referral program?

There’s no definitively right answer; simply a new way to think about your advertising dollars.

(And to be clear; it’s not about a total shut off and pivot; it’s a new balance and should always be dialed in to where your target is at.)

Stay Positive & Yes, This Applies To Us And Our Personal Brands, Too

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Expertise is a treasure. Being a pro means that you’re the one they call when they need someone who knows X.

They call because it relieves their stress, takes the weight off their shoulders and puts the responsibility on someone who will make it better no matter what it takes – it’s their (your?) job.

Equally important to understand is who they won’t call.

They won’t call you if they think they can do X better. They won’t call if they are ignorant of the value of having an expert do the work.

This all means two things:

We can’t rest on our laurels when it comes to our work. We have to continuously strive to be better at what we do.

Second, we have to communicate our value. Whether that’s through testimonials or demonstrations or, yes, a little bragging.

No one is going to work toward convincing themselves they need an expert.

That’s on the expert to do.

Stay Positive & Stay Pro

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