GarthBox

When you’re in a rut, mix it up.

When you’ve got momentum, mix it up.

Either way you can benefit from mixing it up. Either doing so helps shake off what’s holding you down or it helps you use the energy and success of the present to create something new in the future.

The worst thing you can do is stay the same.

Stay Positive & What’ll You Mix Today? (Tomorrow?)

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Here’s a lesson I learned early on in my entrepreneurial career: share everything as you’re working on it.

And when I write “everything” I mean it. Not just the good, the positive, the stuff that’s working, but the mistakes, the issues you’ve faced, the struggles, too.

There are only about 20 people who read one of the many progress updates I wrote about opening a bar and they learned about the crazy situation of a contractor hitting the sprinkler system and dropping 200 gallons of water in the space during build out. It was horrendous and there’s no shortage of negative stories I thought of about it. (People might not think I know what I’m doing or those working on my build out aren’t doing it right. Or now the opening schedule will get pushed back. Or that’s going to cost a lot of money. Or, oof, I hope he doesn’t ask for help cleaning that up! But I shared the story anyway.)

Now I have 20 regulars at the bar with whom I get to laugh about the situation with. It became a fun memory because I didn’t hide it.

A few other reasons to share:

• You’ll almost always be offered help or mentorship of some sort when you share a mistake on a project.
• You’ll almost always create more confidence in yourself, but also in regard to what others have in you. Transparency and proactive communication are rare traits and they are valued.
• You’ll almost always have a greater reach and greater impact on your story than any ad you can buy.

And if you’re concerned about oversharing, don’t be. If someone doesn’t want to hear about it or read about it, they don’t have to. Neither of you lose anything.

Stay Positive & Share Away

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It doesn’t feel like you’re losing weight and getting fit… and then it does.

It doesn’t feel like you’re making an impact, building a following, and creating change… and then it does.

It never feels the way you want it to feel at first. Actually, it might not for awhile.

But with enough positivity, persistence and acclimation … then it does.

Stay Positive & Keep At It

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The harshest of winters are easier to get through when we’re excited for a trip we’re taking in spring.

Work is easier to get into when we’re excited about a project we’re working on.

It’s easier to get up for the day when there’s something we’re excited for.

Relationships go smoother when we have plans together that we’re excited for.

Everything gets easier when there’s excitement around it.

Fortunately, we don’t have to wait for the excitement. It doesn’t just appear out of thin air.

Excitement can be found anywhere we make it.

(Note: Curiosity helps immensely when it comes to becoming excited.)

Stay Positive & Make More Excitement

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You might have a boss, a leader, an organizer, but you’re not on a bus.

Rather, you’re in a fleet of buses. Driving your own.

With the ability to change course, lead your own fleet, join another at any time.

To think we’re on the bus is an excuse for complacency, for a schedule, for comfort. It’s easy to go on knowing we just need to follow the orders and the map another gives us; to sit until called upon.

The industrial age called for riding buses.

The connection economy we’re in now? Not so much.

Stay Positive & You’re A Leader Now (We All Are)

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It’s definitely worth the investment of time and energy to make sure what you offer is real, quality and worth the money.

But the trinket their buying, the charity efforts, the meal they’ve ordered is not what they really get.

What they get is a story.

A story they get to tell themselves. And if you’re lucky, a story they tell others, too.

The good aspect is that you get to influence that story; build it, refine it, set the stage for it. Sure, it involves the product or purchase their investing in, but it also involves everything else around it, too.

Stay Positive & Design (Of Everything Around Your Product Or Service) Matters

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One of the great disappointments I continue to hear about mask mandates being lifted is that now people will see their real facial expressions.

No more hiding the smirk or hiding the frustration. (Aside, no more hiding oregano from that taco you ate that’s now stuck in your teeth either.)

Of course, what you were hiding wasn’t really hidden. Maybe from another person’s direct visual sense, but not the energy or the attitude or the pitch of your voice or even the indirect visual sense – the crinkle of your eyebrows or how your ears pull down a bit when you smile.

People have been looking and listening to other people for years; a mask isn’t enough to prevent them from reading you.

Funny thing is that the same goes for brands.

Stay Positive & Guises Don’t Work Anymore

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