Life Lesson

No doubt, most routines we may have had established early in the year are out the window.

The lack of consistency leads to a overwhelmed, stressed out and noisy mind, and an overwhelmed, stressed out and noisy mind can easily lead to unhappiness and discontent – neither of which we want.

Alas, the quickest way to make room in the mind again is to establish new consistencies. The beauty of it is that it doesn’t take much.

Having the same thing for breakfast for the next two weeks or designating 8:00-8:30 a.m. as reading time is enough to ease your mind.

It almost doesn’t matter what you decide to do; what matters most is that it gets decided and upheld day after day because then there’s a window of time that your mind can’t wrestle and stress with.

Stay Positive & Create Your Peace

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There’s a tradition at Bierstadt Lagerhaus in Denver of a slow-pour pilsner. It’s the method of creating a lot of foam to release CO2 in a beer and then letting it dissipate before pouring more in.

It smooths the beer out, increases aromatics and impacts the flavor by breaking some proteins in the foamy lacing that remains on the glass.

It does all of that with the same beer, same glass, same faucet, same person pouring it. All that’s different is the time. It takes roughly 5 minutes to get a full glass of a slow-pour pilsner.

A lot of our executions could become better with the slow-pour method. When we give our focused attention to a project, but do it carefully and with patience; it’s ultimately going to lead to a better result.

Stay Positive & Haste Makes Waste

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During quarantine, here are a few things worth doing that you’ll thank yourself later for.

• Start a blog (or consistently pick up the one you had started).
• If you haven’t used something in your home in the last year, toss it.
• Order an external hard drive and backup all your important files.
• Write a letter to a friend & reach out to three others you haven’t talked to in forever.
• Plant a container garden.

Stay Positive & What Else Do You Suggest?

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A lot of the questions being asked are around delivery, connecting digitally and keeping safe in this new environment.

All the tactical and sometimes strategic questions we’re asking about our brands and businesses are helping us come out stronger on the other side of the pandemic.

Alas, the questions don’t need to stop then and they don’t need to stop now (especially if you’ve figured out how to pivot during this time).

We always need to be asking (and answering) questions about doing things differently, learning what people really want, and what more we can do that still aligns with our values.

For some of the brightest brands, the situation we’re in isn’t a forced shake because they’ve they’ve been dancing on the edges of their business since the git-go.

Stay Positive & This Can Be Your New Git-Go

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In times of frustration and tension, people want hope.

Not hope on its own. Not false hope. Not a running faucet of hope.

But a side of hope.

A sign that you’re going to make it through; a bit of optimism; a sight into the other side of things.

Whatever you sell or gift, now is the time to add a side of hope to it.

Stay Positive & Order Up

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Leaping is easier when there’s a hand on the other side you can grab.

Badass part? You typically only need to ask someone to extend their hand.

That’s it. Just ask.

Go ahead and reach out to a few people. It’ll change everything.

Stay Positive & Even Me

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A dozen years from now someone will mention the COVID-19 pandemic and we’ll have memories of it surface.

The beauty of that is that we get to decide what sort of memories we will have made.

Are they ones of supporting area businesses and our friends?

Are they ones of connecting with those closest to us via live stream, letters and JackBox games?

We could think back to it being the time we wrote the book we wanted or table we crafted that still stands in the middle of the living room.

Maybe it’s a memory of cleaning out the basement only to find an old gameboy advance and showing our kid it; ultimately making their entire day.

We may not actively look back at this hell of a time, but there’s no doubt there will be triggers in the future that will bring back feelings and memories of this time.

Stay Positive & What Will Yours Be?

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