Why Try To Get Out Of Your Box, When You Can Use What's In It?
What do you wake up hoping to change?
Turns out that answer is the same answer to the prompt “Tell me about your business.”
What you do is far more compelling when you get to the heart of it; what’s driving you? What change are you trying to make? Why does your business exist?
Call it your “why” or your “purpose” or your “reason to exist,” but have it. Start every conversation with it. Repeat it to yourself throughout the day. Fuel it.
Stay Positive & Well?
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The worst conversation you could overhear is:
“That place looks really cool!”
“Yea, it is. Inside is beautiful!”
“Oh, yea? I bet! When was the last time you were there?”
“I actually don’t remember. Maybe a year ago?”
Being cool isn’t good enough. What’s your story?
Stay Positive & Cool Gets Attention, But Not Loyalty
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Certainly you want to grow in your professional career. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t be reading this.
It’s obvious, though, that to grow you must create the space to grow.
How one goes about that is what separates the impresario from the predictable, the remarkable from the mediocre.
One will build more space and work to get bigger.
The other gets rid of the 80 percent that’s producing 20 percent of the results and works to get better.
Yes, you can grow either way, but which is the growth you want: bigger? or better?
Stay Positive & Turns Out Bigger Is Often The By Product Of Better
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The toughest decisions you’ll have to make can be made before you actually face them.
The moments that test your morality or your leadership method or your ethics can be handled ahead of time. It all has to do with establishing your values; what you demand or refuse to deal with in your work.
When you set boundaries early on, it removes the “tough” in “tough decision” in the future.
These are mine. What are yours?
Stay Positive & Values Are Everything
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We often have a dozen plans for if something goes wrong, but in the effort to lay out as many safety nets as possible, many-a-manager forgets to prepare for success.
What if your post goes viral? Are you ready to handle that influx of social engagement?
What if your pitch is such a success that they want to buy 10x the amount of product you currently have? Do you have a plan to accommodate?
Believe it or not, success is often more disruptive than failure.
Why wouldn’t you spend more time planning for it?
Stay Positive & Prepared For Things To Go Right
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Your work becomes infinitely better when you begin to notice the stories of all that’s around you.
The masterminds of our generation and each before us had the skill to recognize and appreciate the story their friends told about themselves, the story of a product they used every morning, the stories athletes would revisit each time before a performance.
Every interaction, decision and shipment of one’s work is driven by stories.
Stories we tell ourselves. Stories we hear. Stories we want to prove to be true.
And when we listen, we’re able to to make a real impact, to tell a story justice, to use a story to connect, to hear what another is truly saying.
Stay Positive & Stories Are Everything
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You might have heard the basics a thousand times before, but those around you might not have.
Maybe a teammate was working with another client before your meeting and needs to be regrounded.
Maybe you simply want to emphasize to the client that your thinking is grounded in the agreed upon essentials.
The thing about a foundation is once you let it slip away, you’re working with an entirely new pyramid and the risk of going off-brand, off-target, off-grid increases exponentially.
It’s not worth it for the extra two minutes it takes to reiterate the essentials.
Stay Positive & Grounded
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