Life Lesson

Progress is made when the fear of staying the same outweighs the fear of change.

I’d argue greater progress happens when the alternative of moving forward is harder or scarier than the main option of how to move forward.

Consider the order in which you completed your last to-do list; I’m sure you chose the items to do in the order you did because the alternatives sounded worse.

Cleaning windows of a storefront is more fun to do when the other option is to clean the toilets.

If you’re stuck (or just want to move forward faster), find something worse than the action that will actually get you moving.

Can’t find something? Then make it up.

Stay Positive & Whatever It Takes

Then you better know it.

Stories from others. Experience from yourself. Have read books about it.

And even then, double check it before you talk about it.

Is it still accurate?

There was a day that one person told another that it’s impossible to split the atom, even though it was done and shared in the newspaper that morning – they simply didn’t read the paper yet.

Stay Positive & Know It Thennnnn Show & Tell

If you’re telling a joke, it’s far more impactful if you work your way to the punchline than if you start with the punchline.

Same goes for selling a product; it’s far more impactful to lead a prospect to your product than it is to lead with your product.

Stay Positive & It Applies To All Communication, Really

Which is harder? The up front planning, setting the stage, building out the roadmap or delivering on the action items, meeting the deadlines, and rallying the team to complete each step?

The answer of course is: yes.

Going into both with the mindset that it’s meaningful work is exactly what makes the work meaningful.

Anything short of that just won’t add up.

Stay Positive & The Equation Needs To Be Balanced

When a joke hits right, the connection between the storyteller and the audience increases exponentially.

You probably didn’t need convincing of that.

What you may need convincing of is that though when a joke falls flat, you may get questionable looks or a headshake or deadpan silence, it’s only temporary.

If there’s one thing people move quickly on from it’s humor.

Which is to say they move on even from good humor.

(Can you recall any of the jokes from the last stand up show opener that you laughed hard at?)

All the more reason that humor needs to be shot after shot to be effective.

Stay Positive & Huh Huh

There’s not a single job description out there that is all encompassing. Not a single one covers all the facets that you’ll need to lean into. And certainly, there’s no description that could possibly cover all the potential you have to offer.

But much of what’s missing from a job description is unpredictable. The business doesn’t know where it will be when you hit your two-year mark just the same as you don’t know where your passion and curiosity will lead you to ideate around.

There is, however, one variable that is predictable and missing in every job description: internal relationship building.

Maybe they call it leadership. Maybe they say relationship building and mean external when they really mean internal. Maybe they guise it as management which is a specific industrial style of relationship building (or breaking, depending on how you use it).

The funny thing about the relationship building component though is that everything else outside the job description is dependent on that.

The better the relationships, the better everything you didn’t know you’d be doing or influencing becomes.

Stay Positive & It’s About The People

It’s not visible until it is.

An overnight success isn’t actually an overnight success. It’s a thousand invisible successful moments that led to this one visible moment.

And failure didn’t happen today. It happened in a hundred small moments leading up to today.

What’s important is that we do what we think and feel will lead to a success… every day. Drip by drip by drip.

Get comfortable with the lack of visibility. Success isn’t like putting colored sand in a jar.

Stay Positive & Don’t Slow Down