Life Lesson

The trap that claims many entrepreneurs, artists and impresarios is that if something works (or doesn’t work today) it will work (or not work) tomorrow.

After all, the conditions are practically the same. Not much has changed. There hasn’t been a big alter in leadership or an increase in mechanical pressure. There’s not worse weather today and you didn’t wake up any later than usual. At face value, nothing went wrong yesterday and today’s not any different, so why be concerned?

Mainly because today is different. (Tomorrow will be, too.)

Ebbs and flows don’t happen over night. They happen over time with subtle, non-noticeable shifts.

More often than not, the consistency trap makes us lazy. We begin making assumptions instead of inserting check valves and analyzing how today might be different from yesterday. (Even more importantly, we need to assert foresight on how tomorrow might be different from today.)

Perhaps because nothing bad happened yesterday is all the reason to pay closer attention today.

It’s a number game, a statistical evaluation over a lifetime that can either work in our favor. Or not.

 

Stay Positive & Make Sure Output Today Adds Value Tomorrow

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Beyond the current description you have …

Beyond what’s on your LinkedIn profile …

Beyond what your boss expects you to do …

You can work to make sure that anyone who you connect with leaves in a better state than when they arrived.

Yea, it might be a second job, but the world will be a better place if we all enroll.

 

Stay Positive & No Application Required

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A lot of projects get held up when arguments take place.

Should it be this way or that?

It’s worth pausing to determine if that argument is worth slowing the project over.

Does what’s being argued about matter in this phase?

More often than not, it can be argued about later.

When we shrug off the discussions that don’t need to be had right now, we actually allow the process to iron things out. In letting things take their course, the arguments rarely end up happening.

By all means, have conversations about making the work stronger, but have them when it actually matters.

 

Stay Positive & Is Now The Best Time To Speak Up?

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First and foremost, it’s worth investing our time in people.

Reading, too.

When the going gets tough, it’s worth investing our time to keep going.

Consider investing time to respond rather than react.

Often it’s better to invest the time in polishing our work; in most cases it’s perceived as lazy (cheap) not to.

It’s worth investing our time in the why of all we do and the who we are doing it for.

Time is finite and the gap between negative and positive ROI for it is thin.

That thinness makes it easy to slack, to rationalize more input that produces less output.

The neat thing about where we invest our time is that we can choose where we invest.

For better or worse.

 

Stay Positive & Don’t Spend Your Time, Invest It

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When someone says “something always comes up last second,” it’s hard to believe that can’t be course-corrected.

The problems we face that cause us to thrash near the deadline can often be prevented.

Yet, after the thrash, after the fire alarm, after the mad dash at the end, the pain is gone and we begin to convince ourselves, “That wasn’t so bad” or “At least it’s over with now.”

Thinking like that is exactly why the work loop begins again with the next project (and ends just the same).

Better to thrash early, set your own earlier deadline, put the pressure on the project to force the breaks early and to provide cushion on all the other items that need to happen before it goes out the door (proofing, approvals, feedback from others, etc,.)

Doing something fast doesn’t mean it’s not done well. What matters is when you do the work fast.

 

Stay Positive & Sooner Is Better

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No doubt the work gets better when it’s done with intention.

Even more important is the system and culture we build when we work with intention.

Intention, though, requires us to recognize when we’re doing busy work, when we’re filling the void for the sake of filling it, and when we’re checking boxes because it looks like we’re intentionally doing work (even though it’s often not work that matters).

Intention is as much about the pause and response (not plow and react); it is fully focusing on the why of a task from the moment before we start to the moment after we ship.

The key for intention is in all the breaks along the journey, the gut checks, the reminders.

A moment to remember why you’re doing what you’re doing as well as who you are doing it for.

 

Stay Positive & Intention Creates Attention In The End

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A trick of the writing trade I’ve learned is to write unexpectedly.

That often means two things.

Write a lot of options, more than anyone would guess you would. Put more on paper, bring more to the table and win at the numbers game.

And then, cross out or toss everything that could have been expected.

If another person could write it … if another brand could post it … if another would anticipate it then get rid of it.

What’s left is the truth, the way you see it.

Turns out the way you see it, the real way, is often the way it resonates with others.

 

Stay Positive & Unexpected Writing Says “I See You”

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