Friends Or Followers

Kitchen Tools

Friends will surely support you. They’ll purchase your work, give you a friendly hard time about it and share it with their friends. It’s important to keep your friends posted on your progress and get them excited about what you’re working on. They’re important to ensuring your work spreads.

But there’s a limit to how many connections the work will spread to with friends.

So the duty of a professional is also to gather followers by leading a tribe with the work they do. People they likely don’t see day-to-day. People who don’t know about their childhood. People who have friends that look to them to recommend new places, books, work, etc.

This requires vulnerability to others. It requires sharing your secrets of how you make your work. It requires regularly showing up to prove you’re in it for the long run and worth following.

There’s no limit to how many connections the work will spread to with followers.

Stay Positive & How’s Your Tribe Coming Along?

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Most Raspberries, More Ideas

Raspberries In A Bowl

Most homegrown raspberries go unpicked because the picker isn’t comfortable with changing their posture to view the plant from all angles.

The same premise happens with good ideas.

There’s more to be seen and appreciated outside of eye-level at the grocery store.

The same is true with in finding good ideas, too.

Are you willing to bend, pivot and jump to get the best of the best?

There are ideas and people and rewards waiting for you.

Stay Positive & It’s No Good To Leave Good Raspberries Behind

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Performances

Performing Soccer In Empty Parking Lot

Six months ago we were all performing more than we are now. We performed for friends and family and our colleagues and bosses. We performed for people on the street or in the same cafe that we were working within.

Performing holds us accountable and we knew that. It’s why we told people when and where we were doing work, what events we would be attending, and we’d make sure our boss saw us hustle in the office.

Without offices, coffee shops and public platforms to perform on, we’re performing less.

Not that we’re not being efficient, getting shit done or meeting expectations; it’s the flare and pizazz of the work that’s falling by the wayside.

It’s on us to find new ways to connect with our audiences, platforms to energetically perform on and to not lose the drive and exhilaration of going above and beyond in our work and relationships.

Everything has a stress test. If you’re going through yours, keep on going. We need you to perform not like you used to, but with the same energy that you used to.

Stay Positive & Bring It

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Play Time

Pineapple Fun

Friendly reminder to include play time in the mix.

Playing with ideas that might not work.

Concepting without constraints.

Ideating in a new space (is there a playground nearby?).

Inspiring someone else with your project.

The work might be hard, but no one said it can’t be fun, too.

Stay Positive & The Fun Part Is On You

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You Made The Right Choice

Women With Dress

Simply reading those words makes us feel good. Typing them, too.

We can sell all we want, but the real game changer for loyalty and good reviews and positive interactions is the immediate confirmation and reassurance of a choice made right.

It might be a newsletter about the product you just purchased, describing it in greater detail or it could be another customer saying “Nice dress!” to the lady carrying a new one out the door.

The more we can create an environment of assurance, the better the business and brand will be.

It does require smart thinking and hard work, though. Up for it?

Stay Positive & Thanks For Stopping By On This Blog, You Made The Right Choice

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Micro Stresses

Bottom of A Ladder

Little stresses add up fast.

The stress of an unclean work space or the stress of basing your success on another’s progress or the stress of interacting with someone you don’t enjoy interacting with.

It’s vital to keep these micro stresses in check. To monitor and remove; to work in a state of flow.

There’s little stresses all around us. It’s on us to take care of them before they do more harm.

Stay Positive & Here’s A Good Read

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Keeping Your Promises

Laptop On Table

With the significant shift into digital communications, keeping promises is becoming a greater differentiator.

Online, email to email, it’s easier to put an excuse, cancel a plan, and say no.

It’s easier to react and faster to say yes to a request now, too.

In all the haste and quick clicks, promises are being broken, forgotten or simply not given (when if it were face-to-face they would be).

Making promises you can keep. That’s the differentiator; not how fast you can respond, how much you can take on or how many time you can get away with saying “Oh, I missed that in my email.”

Stay Positive & Do What You Type You Will

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