Life Lesson

You can show people the right way of doing something, but when they have a hundred other items on their to-do list, knowing what’s right doesn’t always mean it will be done right.

That’s why it’s just as important to show what the wrong way looks like. It’s really a safety net for you/your brand.

That’s why product manuals display images of the right way and the wrong way. It’s why brand guidelines do the same with how to use a logo.

If you’re running into an issue with team members doing things that aren’t right – even when you have showed them how to do it right – it might be time to focus just as much on communicating what’s the wrong way.

People are more risk-adverse than they are progressive.

Stay Positive & When Things Don’t Go Right, Go Left

Photo credit

If you want something to work out in an optimal way…

You need time to think of the questions you should ask.

You need time to ask the questions to the right people.

You need time to ask follow up questions to the answers.

You need time to ask new questions that keep you moving forward.

Curiosity drives progress.

Stay Positive & Are You Making Time For It?

Photo credit

Sausage tastes amazing. There’s so many variants, so many toppings, so many unique recipes.

Watching sausage get made isn’t that fun.

It’s concerning. If you’ve ever watched sausage get made, you probably wondered how the heck it would turn out to be something anyone likes.

A lot of the remarkable work in the world was made like sausage.

It’s okay if you’re the one making sausage–you know that it’s going to work out in the end.

From an outsider perspective, it’s hard not to try to change the process, it’s hard not to freak out about what the end result will be, it’s hard not to put a halt to it.

But we need our sausage.

Stay Positive & Let’m Keep Making It

Photo credit

Celebration doesn’t need to be a major event.

It doesn’t require invites and postage or clever RSVP emails.

You don’t need a hundred other people to celebrate a milestone of yours.

The best way you can celebrate is by noticing that something is worth celebrating. You observe your heart rate increasing, you hear your little squeal of excitement, you catch yourself smiling.

Too often we go through life and work without celebrating moments big or small.

If it means we need to change how we celebrate to make sure we do–that’s a change worth making.

Stay Positive & What’ll You Celebrate Today?

Photo credit

Here’s the secret to disruption.

Keep doing what you’re doing so long as what you’re doing is for the target.

Those who make the meaningful impact show up again and again and take customers where they hope to go.

They don’t make cuts because of a bottom line or because they don’t want to do the emotional labor. They don’t switch the logo and revamp the website every other year. They don’t pay for a super bowl ad. They don’t pivot their marketing every time they have a bad sales weekend.

The successful disrupters almost do the opposite of what we think of when we think of disruption; they stick to their commitment to the people they sought to serve.

Stay Positive & Drip By Drip By Drip, Disruption Happens

Photo credit

It’s worth a pause when you hear (or say yourself) that it’s a win-win situation.

Everyone loves winning, but at what cost? Empathy and connection?

And when will the feeling of winning fade? Will you still feel like it was a win-win five hours from now? Five weeks? Five years?

And who wins? You and another, surely, but is it the right people? The stakeholders? The customers? Your family?

Our win-win situations might not actually be the wins we set out to make.

Stay Positive & Worth A Double-Double Check

Photo credit

Pain reminds you that you’re alive.

But so does friendship and love and camaraderie and compliments and a high five.

It can be great to be reminded we’re alive.

What if we helped others remember that today, too?

Stay Positive & Fist Bump

Photo credit