Life Lesson

There’s still a significant return on your investment in traditional advertising.

But when I say traditional advertising, I don’t mean ads in the paper or getting in your neighborhood’s newsletter.

Traditional in the sense of promoting your brand in person.

Going to events to connect with others. Inviting those you want to be customers over for a grill out. Knocking on doors – not to drop off a mailer, but to introduce yourself.

Being out there in person might not appear to have as significant or as quick of a return on your investment, but if you’re in it for the long-run, then it pays dividends.

Are there more you can connect with? More that you can do for others?

Because that’s as traditional as you can get.

Stay Positive & Show Up

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Having your head down saves you from distractions.

It keeps you focused on what’s in front of you, too.

But having your head down also removes the potential for you to interact with others.

It keeps you from connecting.

And if we know anything about “making it” in this world, it’s that we’ll never make it alone with our head down.

Stay Positive & Having Your Head Down Is Just Hiding

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When you’re thankful for someone, you can’t also be mad at them.

When you’re appreciative of the way things are, you can’t also be frustrated with them.

When you’re full of gratitude, you can’t also be full of fear, worry, shame, etc.

You can try running from or outworking an emotion you really don’t want to experience.

Or you can practice gratitude.

Stay Positive & Helps Even More When You Write What Your Thankful For

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When you take ownership of something, your attitude shifts.

You care more than you did before about it. You manage it better. You show it off and share it with others. You make the most of it.

Interestingly, there’s not much that dictates ownership of something.

It’s not like you’re showing the car title to people or revealing the name you had sewn onto the inside of the jacket or the letter that was addressed to you along with the package.

It goes to show that we can take ownership of nearly anything we want.

Like the project we’ve been putting off or training a new hire.

We can take ownership of making the city we live in a better place or reading books that make difference.

We can own our mornings, our meetings, our bodies and our relationships if we choose to.

Ownership might be more selfless than we ever thought it to be.

Stay Positive & Own it

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Good habits give you more time in your day, save your willpower for important decisions and build rewarding momentum that you can benefit from throughout the long haul.

Curiously, you can’t fill your entire day with habits because you’ll lose autonomy.

So how many habits is the right number?

My guess is roughly ten.

Ten positive habits because it’s likely you can do all of them in the morning and have the remainder of the day to explore, try new things, make sprints, fail … and at the end of it you can still feel fulfilled because you followed through with your habits at the start of it.

Here’s a list of 6 to start with if you aren’t already doing them.

Stay Positive & What Others Would You Add?

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Every effort can benefit from a little air to breathe, a little slack, a little decanter time.

That’s not to suggest standing still. In fact, it suggests the opposite.

When you prepare for one thing then to jump to preparing for another, you’re setting yourself up for good things to fill that void, and subsequent voids.

Consider this question. If you could invest a little today to get something special a week from now. Would you?

That’s the reality of the world we live in. And if we choose to invest a little into many things each day, then we’re setting ourselves up for a good chunk of future benefits.

And then by preparing more, we compound those.

The work we put in always has a reward so long as we keep putting work in. The beauty is that momentum builds and the benefits get bigger without more work being necessary.

Stay Positive & Allow For More Prep Time

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There’s such a thing as the minimum viable audience (MVA). It’s the smallest amount of fans, followers, customers, etc. you need to sustain your business.

It’s a far less stressful and much more successful endeavor that trying to reach the masses.

However, there’s part of the MVA that still gets overlooked when it comes to marketing and community.

That piece is inclusiveness.

Just because you’re keeping your customer base small, doesn’t make it okay to abstain from inviting minorities, different genders, and those with disabilities.

Yes, find the smallest audience you need, but do so without exclusion of those who deserve to be in your MVA.

Stay Positive & Make The Door Wider If Needed

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