Life Lesson

If you’re faced with a challenge you’re struggling with, it’s entirely fair to ask someone for insight, help, or – my personal favorite – to react to a solution idea (rather than asking them to come up with one from scratch).

The issue I see with some who agree that this is a great move is they don’t know who to ask. So they stall.

Mainly because they don’t like the answer to the question: who can I ask?

Anyone.

Over the years of running businesses, every quarter or so I’ll get an email from someone I’ve never met asking for advice. The question is almost always ill thought out and sometimes it even answers itself as they ramble on, but I love these more than any other questions I get because what’s indicative of a leader in the making isn’t the answer I give them, it’s the fact they asked someone. Anyone.

Stay Positive & Ask Anyone… But Do Ask

The friends we know and love. They don’t have more time than us, but they do carve time for us.

If you want to inspire your sales team, you need to carve think space into your work day in which you study some other industry and how they sell. Anything inside your day-to-day is either known or easily predicted by them – they’re living it just as you are.

To stand out from a group, you need to carve out time to practice that art daily, consistently, vulnerably.

Leaders don’t wait until they have time. They carve it.

Stay Positive & Sharpen Your Timepiece

Then it’s always another.

The question to ask isn’t what will fill the void. We know the answer. Something challenging. That’s what voids attract.

The question to ask is what you’ll do about it? And the next challenge. And the next challenge. And the next challenge.

The talented don’t avoid it, they make the most out of it. Each challenge calls for a unique solution. A solution that may just bring you more joy than actually solving the challenge. And certainly – without an ounce of doubt – will bring you more joy than avoiding overcoming what’s in front of you for fear of what will fill the void next.

Stay Positive & You’re Up… Again (And That’s Not A Bad Thing)

If you want to make great beer, it helps to create a yeast starter. In other words, you feed and multiply yeast cells before pitching them into the wort so they can do the work of turning sugar-water into beer.

You can still make beer by just tossing some yeast in, of course. But the starter can be the difference between okay beer and great beer.

Similar can be said for any project, really.

The starter can make all the difference.

Giving sales reps a list of prospects to contact might result in some okay outreach, but giving them some email copy templates to leverage turns it from good to great results.

Pitching a conference seminar topic with only a title might get you through the review panel, but working ahead to get the description and actionable takeaways listed out is bound to speed things up down the line (both in promotion and in internal execution of it).

Leaders don’t just lead. They place starters for others to lead on their own.

Stay Positive & More Bread Crumbs

It’s paralyzing to hype ourselves up to do more than what we need.

It’s challenging to set ourselves up to do what we need.

It’s inviting to set ourselves up to start toward what we need.

2,000 words per day. 1,000 words per day. 250 words per day.

1 hour per day. 30 minutes per day. 15 minutes per day.

Turns out when we make starting the goal, we end up getting where we need to be without any of the stress or paralysis of the distance to get there.

Stay Positive & Find Your Starting Variable

The first coach you should hire is yourself.

The one that can talk you up when you won’t listen to anyone else.

The one that will motivate you when the other coaches aren’t around.

That voice inside your head that speaks up before anyone can yell from the sidelines? That’s your first line of resistance (or persistence). That voice? That coaching voice? It’s yours.

Stay Positive & Start At The Source

If they know nothing about you, they can’t connect.

If they know nothing about your mission, they can’t contribute.

If they know nothing about your story, they can’t retell it.

If you’re after progress, it’s impossible to achieve without letting anyone else know.

Stay Positive & The Microphone Is In Your Hand (Always Has Been)