Life Lesson

The words we use can make or break a brand.

They can carry a relationship and they can tumble a partnership.

They can make you a friend or an enemy.

They can build trust with customers or lose it.

The words we use can ignite emotion or promote apathy.

Most importantly, though, the words we use should not be the words we use. For them to have a meaningful impact, the words need to be the ones our target uses.

It doesn’t start with speaking and seeing what resonates. It starts with listening and reciprocating messages in a way that they know you have heard them.

You can write about how you have made a jar that’s easy-to-open, but saying you have a jar that allows you to keep your independence and only ask for help for more important things is a lot different “easy-to-open.”

Stay Positive & The Right Words Require Insight

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It’s insanely easy to pull one over on someone.

To discreetly up sell or lock someone in to a subscription or focus their attention on the benefits and not the consequences.

But more and more people are becoming aware of having one pulled over them. They’ve had it done too many times already.

It makes you feel like an idiot, like you’re not good enough for a business, like you’re not cared for.

Better to be a brand that gives one over (and to purchase from brands that do). For us to tip the scale, we have to put our attention on giving so much that there’s not a doubt in a consumer’s mindset that they’re secretly being swindled.

Telling others, “Because I see you. Because I know what it’s like to buy from a brand that doesn’t care,” goes a long way in earning their loyalty.

And sticking to that promise goes even longer.

Stay Positive & Place Your Loyalty In Those Who Give

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It’s pretty easy to make a to-do list and to run with it.

Almost as easy is to make a to-do list that, beside each task, you list the motivation for it or the feeling you’ll have when it’s complete or the reason it’s on the list in the first place.

Two types of easy lists, but one with so much more power and invited motivation to complete it.

Stay Positive & Which List Have You Been Making?

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If you reflect on the times you’ve lost it, you’ll quickly realize they were all moments when the workload lightened, your schedule was more free and you had time for things.

That time is a trickster, though, because if you have time for things then you also have time to not do anything–you have time to waste.

In a world where time is relative, we need deadlines more than ever. Ones assigned for us and ones we assign ourselves to keep the motivation alive.

The best way to avoid losing your motivation is to keep needing it.

Stay Positive & What’s Next On Your List?

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Talking about your competition puts them top of mind for those you’re talking to.

You can’t talk about their weak spots without it sounding like you’re degrading them.

You can’t talk about their strong suits without making it sound like they’re better than you.

Face value, it may seem like copying something new a competitor does prevents them from having an advantage, but really it is a way that keeps the average, average.

You know what works and doesn’t work for your brand, so there’s no need to bring any of your competitors into the discussion of progress.

Do more of what does and less of what doesn’t.

That’s how you compete.

Stay Positive & You Do You (Well)

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If you’re going to feel fear, feel it around the idea of being done.

Because if it’s a mission worth journeying to complete, it’s a mission worth continuing.

The only question you need to have at the finish line is, “What’s next?”

Stay Positive & More Doing

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From time to time, you’ll have the chance to inject more into your work than you thought.

You might be provided a stretch of extra time or capital or resource of some sort.

What you put that into can make all of the difference.

If what gets enhanced helps the whole, then you’re likely to be building something meaningful. If it helps enhance profits, you may not be building the business we need.

We need organizations that make things better for people, not the other way around.

Stay Positive & Are You Ready?

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