Life Lesson

You give a big sigh.

You grab your phone to open Facebook.

You start to feel frustrated.

You think about a task that’s easier to do and quickly.

All these are signs that are worth noticing because they’re proof that you’re doing meaningful work, vulnerable work, hard work.

You’re putting in the emotional labor and it shows by the presence of resistance; by the urge to hide; by the signs that are convincing you to do something else.

Stay Positive & Notice, Then Ignore

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Reach out.

Reach out to an expert for some advice.

Reach out to a friend to chat.

Reach out to someone outside your industry to hear what they’re stuck with.

Reach out to someone on LinkedIn whom you share a connection with.

Life is a lot like business, the more you reach out, the better it gets.

Stay Positive & They’re Waiting

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If your guests aren’t leaving five star reviews – make changes until they are.

If you’re not getting as many people signed up for your class, newsletter, workshop, conference, whatever – make changes until you do.

If you’re not happy with the answer to “what am I doing this for?” … you guessed it – make changes until you are.

Stay Positive & Dissatisfaction Is Fuel (And It’s Just A Simple Question To Find It)

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Is it important enough work that you’ll put your own wallet on the line?

Is it important enough work that it’s okay if someone else gets the credit?

Is it important enough work that you will lose sleep just thinking about it?

Important work takes a lot out of us. We put our resources, our status and our health on the line for things that matter.

If we’re not, it might not be the work we should be doing.

Stay Positive & Invest Wisely

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There’s a really simple gauge to determine whether or not you should invest your time with someone.

Are they curious?

Curious people inevitably have all the other qualities that are worth being inspired by.

Worth checking: Are you the curious one in your friend’s group? They’ll be better because of it.

Stay Positive & Curiosity Connects

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Innovative ideas used to come from taking two seemingly disparate things and finding a way to combine them.

That, of course, was the old economy.

Now innovative ideas come from taking two seemingly disparate tribes and finding ways to connect them.

The beauty of this new economy of innovative ideas is that once you have one, you can keep finding more ways to connect them.

There’s not much more you can do after you combine peanut butter with jelly.

But there’s plenty more you can do when you connect a driver and a passenger or a supplier and a distributor or a person with a problem and a person with their solution.

Stay Positive & Innovations Really Are Endless

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If your website is a headache to journey through, they’ll find another way to get what they want. (Hint: it’s likely with a competitor)

If your parking fee is absurd, they’ll find another more cost-effective way to park.

Two takeaways.

The first is that your job is two-fold: make it as easy for your customer as possible and make it as valuable for them (read: they should feel like they got more than they paid for, be it with their time, money or attention).

The second is that those that are smart enough to find an alternative around you are also the ones that will share that alternative with others.

The last thing you want is word of mouth working against you.

That means you don’t go keeping things status quo when someone finds an alternative (faster and/or cheaper) path.

Stay Positive & Find Ways To Make It Easier + More Valuable, Always

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