Author: Garth Beyer

How would your work differ if you treated it like you were going on vacation tomorrow?

How would your family dinners change if you treated it like the power had gone out and your phone battery died?

How would your ideation change if you acted like you were an improv expert with your own Netflix special about it?

Cool part is that you don’t need permission to treat anything differently than you are.

Stay Positive & What If You Treated This Post Like A Sign?

Straight to it: no one has thrown a fit, reported another to HR, quit the project or held someone by knife point because they were given a reminder by someone who cares. (Read: the reminder being intentionally positive.)

And now thanks to chatgpt, you can ask it to come up with 100 more caring or fun ways to say “Friendly reminder, I need your feedback on this by Tuesday EOD.”

Or better yet, train it up on the type of personality of the person you’re needing to give a reminder to and then ask it.

What you’ll find is it might not be them that’s the problem and who need a reminder, but you on how you’ve communicated so far.

You win either way when you lean in.

Stay Positive & They Win, Too

When it comes to having an extra spatula in the drawer, you might think it’s useful. Not much harm there.

But when it comes to a suite of assets for your sales team to use, it doesn’t matter if you think having all of them is useful.

“Would they miss it if it were gone?”

That’s a far more valuable question to ask (and answer) than “do you think it’s useful?”

First, it makes it about the target and not you. Second, answering the question results in removing a lot of noise which actually makes what remains far more useful (or simply, used!).

By doubling down on what’s actually valuable, you make it more valuable.

Stay Positive & You’re Not Being Cutthroat, You’re Being Focused On Value

There’s a preconceived notion that leverage is something you find.

Look hard enough. Talk to enough people. Dig far enough and you’ll find leverage.

But what if you thought of leverage as something you create.

All it takes is to add some more wood to the end of the existing pole and you can lift the world.

Seems a bit easier than searching for a different tool to leverage, doesn’t it?

Stay Positive & What Can You Build For Others To Leverage?

When you buy an editor’s time, you’re actually buying assurance.

When you pay for the chatGPT subscription, you’re buying a shortcut. (Said positively this time.)

When you’re buying a ticket for an international trip, you’re buying a story to tell your neighbors when you get back.

I recently evaluated a SaaS company and after a lot of digging found one deck with a few slides that actually answered what their target customer was buying: a career booster.

I don’t think the answer to the question of what you’re really buying requires as much vulnerability as the desire to answer it because once you know how the magic trick is done; the trick sort of loses it’s magic.

Or does it?

Stay Positive & Get To The Why (The Real Why)

You can drop off a platter of tacos at a table.

You can hand over the creative brief to the department.

You can send an email to your team.

The content itself is important to get right, but you’re evaluated by so much more.

You have a chance to hand over energy and emotion with every interaction.

You can drop off an experience that makes the table feel like they are being treated like royalty.

You can hand over a brief and ensure your excitement of the work that’s upcoming is inspiring and invigorating – so much so that it’s contagious to the team in that moment; your energy actually makes them want to read the brief.

And that email? Well, Claude can help you come up with a hundred ways to sign off in a way that delivers both emotion and vulnerability.

Stay Positive & You’re Actually Giving More Than You Think Your Giving (But You Can Make It Intentional)

If the boss was here, how would you act?

What about your kid? Or your neighbor? or your idol?

I like to sum them all up: If future you were here, would they be proud?

Sometimes to look beyond is to look within.

Stay Positive & Future You Thanks You