GarthBox

Role play with me here.

Let’s imagine that every action we take is an exchange. This for that.

Maybe it’s exchanging time and we get a friend who feels better having shared about their bad day.

Maybe it’s exchanging guts and risking our status to suggest something meaningful in the meeting.

Maybe it’s exchanging our knowledge so that someone else can excel at something we’re already proficient at.

Maybe we’re not role playing after all.

Stay Positive & What’ll You Exchange Today?

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Hard choices are often disguised as no choices.

But no choice isn’t ever actually true.

There is a choice around actions. A choice around feelings. A choice around what gets done and shared (or what doesn’t).

And if it feels like there is no choice, it might just mean that you may not care enough to work through the toughness of the choice that’s really there.

Stay Positive & Choo-Choose

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Your team members might have the smarts and experience to do the job you’ve hired them to do, but the truth is that it’s unlikely that action or task or skill is their special power.

If you pay close enough attention, you’ll detect their special power. People can’t help but display it.

And once you tap into that – that’s when their work becomes more remarkable.

People talk about passions much more than a job that was done well.

Stay Positive & Unlock Their Potential

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Everyone has their own learning methods, no doubt, but nothing will get you to understand a process or prepare for executing a task than watching someone else do it (or at least try to do it).

If you want to create something, watch someone else do it.

Then watch another person. And another. And another.

And in case you didn’t know, most people are helpful.

All you have to do is ask to observe.

Stay Positive & You Don’t Have To Do Trial By Error

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Know your limits.

It’s a grand piece of advice, but hard to apply to life unless you ask (and answer) the questions.

How much money do you want to make?

How many customers do you want to have to consider your business a success?

How many subscribers to your free newsletter before you feel the work you put into them is worth it?

It’s far easier to achieve a goal if you know the limit and it’s far easier to live happily once you reach it when you know you’ve reached it.

People who say sky is the limit are bound for endless unhappiness.

Know your limit. Chase it. Enjoy it.

Stay Positive & You Can Always Choose A Different Limit (But Choosing Is The Point)

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We’re always seeking something in our work. And the rough part is that we often seek it before the actual work.

If it’s before, then it’s reassurance we’re after.

This is why so many writer’s don’t actually publish, ideators don’t actually invent, and artists don’t actually ship their work.

No reassurance = no work.

Feedback on the other hand is different. Feedback requires one to create something and share it. Feedback can be used to improve something (whereas reassurance doesn’t do anything to the end product).

It’s worth checking if you’re seeking out reassurance or feedback throughout the day.

Stay Positive & Seek Candor Over Affirmations

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This isn’t a case for mistakes that happen naturally.

This is a case for thinking about what mistakes might happen. What’s possible to fail? Where are the hiccups?

The only thing about a plan that we know to be true is that things won’t go as according to it.

So how can you safe guard?

Role play.

Imagine the scenarios that a hiccup might occur and not only what you would do to correct it, but what would you do to ensure it never happens again.

Then take a page from that playbook and apply it before the hiccup happens.

This won’t prevent every problem and mistake from happening, but it will prevent more from happening than what will occur if you don’t.

Stay Positive & (Fictitiously) Make More Mistakes

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