Life Lesson

The beauty of leaping now is that now is the worst you can do.

After the first leap is made, whether it’s a total mess or not, you have information that you can act on (what worked, what didn’t) to leap again, but better.

Go ahead. Do your worst. Let’s go ahead and get it out of the way.

Stay Positive & Then Do Better

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The best leaders either assume positive intention and understand that a person was acting with the best information they had or they give the team member a chance to explain the actions.

When you limit the chance to explain, you don’t just eliminate the space for a dialogue, you eliminate the chance to grow a greater understanding of how someone thinks.

And if you don’t know how someone thinks, then you’re certainly not going to effectively get them to think better, smarter, faster.

Stay Positive & Make The Time To Listen

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The easier you’re categorized, the faster you’re slotted away in a customer’s brain.

But you don’t want to be tucked away with all the other noise and competitors and files in the cabinet, do you?

Stay Positive & Far Better To Transform Someone

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Do you see a website refresh as a cost or investment?

Do you see personal customer service as a cost or investment?

Do you see packaging as a cost or investment?

Do you see an employee development fund as a cost or investment?

Now that you know where you sit. Answer the questions again for your competitors.

Do your competitors see a website refresh as a cost or investment?

Do your competitors see customer service as a cost or investment?

Do your competitors see packaging as a cost or investment?

Do your competitors see an employee development fund as a cost or investment?

Now that you know where your competitor sits, answer the following question.

Are you any different?

Stay Positive & All It Takes Is A Mindset To Differentiate

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I hear from businesses all too often that they want their guests and customers and suppliers to see their effort, their quality control, their determination to make the best product or remarkable service.

They want them to see because anyone who has seen becomes a loyalist.

When you see the effort that a craftsman puts into a product for you, that product becomes more than a product in your eyes. Same goes for any service, too.

And yet…

They don’t shoot and share behind the scenes video. They don’t make it a recurring initiative to include potential guests within the process (whether as a spectator or hands-on participant). They don’t take and share photos of them doing the work.

This is really just a PSA.

If you want them to see, you have to show them.

Stay Positive & Show More And Show More Often

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Assumptions are meant to help us, not harm us.

One of the ways it can help us is if we go into any interaction assuming the other person is struggling with something in their life. (Because reality is, they are.)

Knowing there’s a struggle, you’re immediately more empathetic, more emotionally invested, more caring.

By no means does it become your responsibility to probe for the struggle and help–that’s not the point.

The point is to have the other person feel seen.

And maybe, if we do it enough, others will do the same and we’ll feel seen, too.

Stay Positive & Feeling Seen Feels Good

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There are a lot of reasons to not explore new territory.

The path you’re on doesn’t lead you there.

The habits you’ve formed are easier to maintain.

There are visible roadblocks.

And so on.

But I bet, if you chose to, you could give many more reasons to explore the new territory.

Stay Positive & Which List Are You Reading From?

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