Life Lesson

There are two stages of making something better. The order of which doesn’t matter all that much.

What matters is that both are completed.

IMO, the project isn’t ready to ship until it has hit both stages.

They’re simple stages, too.

One stage is what you have done with the resources you own to make it better.

I can hand pick some better beers that go on tap at my bar, for example.

The other stage is what you have done with the help from others.

I can ask a brewer to come visit on the day we tap their beer so they can engage with our guests that are drinking their beer.

I’ve made it better and I’ve asked for help from someone else who can make it better.

That’s the one-two punch of betterment.

Stay Positive & Betterment —> Remarkability

There was a Wikipedia entry for that, too.

There was a library book before then.

There was a professor you could call before then.

It’s been on us to leverage the latest resource to help with the work at hand.

It always has been.

Stay Positive & If You’re Not Leaning Forward…

Facts are not inherently fun.

The fun comes from sharing a fact with someone who cares about the theme or subject matter of the fact.

That requires empathy.

Fun facts without empathy are merely noise.

Stay Positive & Did You Know Chickens Only Have About 25 Taste Buds?

A friend of mine took a pay cut to get a different job.

I wish that would happen more often.

Not the pay cut part, but the acknowledgement of a tradeoff worth making.

When we know what we want, the path isn’t always two steps forward to get it.

Often time it can be quicker if we take one step back.

Stay Positive & When You Wouldn’t Accept A Tradeoff, Then You Know You’re Set

What can you do today that future you will thank you for?

What can you do for your target market that the future prospect of yours will thank you for?

What can you do right now that the future partner of yours will appreciate you for?

The funny thing about foundation is the best time to lay it is in the future.

Stay Positive & Today’s A Good Day For Tomorrow

It’s no fun when life creates a void for you to fill up.

But overcoming those moments are far easier to do if you make the habit of creating voids for yourself first.

Go ahead and remove yourself from that group project that’s eating at your soul. Hang up the hat to the social organization chair position you’re holding. Cancel your Netflix subscription. Remove Instagram from your phone.

If you get in the habit of closing doors (obviously, with the logic that another will open for you), it becomes easier to find new open doors when life shuts one on you unexpectedly.

Stay Positive & You Can Turn It Into A Habit (And Move Forward Faster)

It’s rare that anyone is giving it their all. There are too many reasons not to. First and foremost it’s far safer to hold a bit in reserve for when we truly need it. That’s natural.

Then there’s all the “un-natural” reasons of fear and willpower and distractions and additions.

All of which rarely have anything to do with the project at hand.

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I recently heard a story about a couple who has sort of a rule in the house. If they raise their voices at eachother, it’s never really about the thing they are raising their voices about.

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All to say, to unlock full capacity and get a little more out of your team or yourself, you need to work outside of the project you’re wanting a little bit more attention to.

Stay Positive & It’ Oxymoronic, Sure, But It Works