GarthBox

Feeling good and confident about the hard work you’re doing is like winning a jackpot lottery ticket.

I’d never say it doesn’t happen, but it’s rare and chances are likelier that you won’t feel that way than you will with your work.

The little voice inside your head that is making you uncomfortable about an idea you’re sharing or frustrated with the progress you’re making or worried about the impact it will have – all those are signals. That’s all. They’re not tangible and they won’t hold up in court (they probably won’t even hold up to your colleagues if you shared it with them).

All to say the job is on us to dance with them and understand that those signals are important to view as you being on the right path (as long as you view the right path as doing meaningful work).

Dance with them and you’re bound to win the lottery. Not the jackpot. But you’ll be with the millions that won because they played.

Stay Positive & Embrace The Emotions

Shitty first drafts are rarely ever shitty. That word is just there to give permission to suck in order to ship.

It’s still a first draft, no matter the quality, though.

There’s nothing you can’t do if you focus on doing shitty first drafts.

No shortage of people to assist you in creating better editions with candor and a helping hand.

Drip by drip by drip.

Stay Positive & Start With The Shitty First Draft

By all means, ship. Do all you can do to get it out in the world.

After it’s out there, I’d never argue that it’s not worth safeguarding it.

There’s a level of maintenance investment, marketing, and a bit of heart to keep it remarkable.

But there’s always a point of diminishing return.

I like to think about this garden a neighbor of mine has. She plants her garden and then puts fence around it, sprays, cages, and has it essentially protected by every single pest, whether it’s native to our city or not.

Already you can imagine how overkill it is, but what’s worse is the additional effort required to maintain the garden because of all the safeguards. It’s more work for her to water and even harder for the plants to flourish because they too, are restricted.

This isn’t just about gardens, of course.

Stay Positive & Safe Is Safe

First mode of motivation is to get someone to find it in themselves. They are doing a task or enrolling in a project because they want to. Selfish, sure, but motivating nonetheless.

Then there’s the influential mode of motivation. This is the boss that asks their colleague to do something or a significant other that does the dishes when they are asked.

The third motivational scenario is an oft overlooked one: doing something for someone else (outside of the one asking or the one being asked).

Generosity is energizing and it’s easier to convince yourself to do something or motivate someone else to do something if you can shine a light on how the action benefits others.

Stay Positive & Do It For Them

I have no interest in working in a stress-free workplace.

Stress is an indicator of tension and there must be tension for there to be change and change must happen for things to be better.

I had a boss once that taught me that it’s best to view work life balance not as a balance, but as a blend.

The same should be said about stress.

Work should be viewed as a work fun/stress blend.

After all, stress is controllable, morphable, leveragable…

Stay Positive & Use Stress To Your Advantage

DIY isn’t black and white, but that kind of thinking prevents a lot of innovation from happening in industries, businesses, and relationships.

A bagel shop we frequent doesn’t toast the bagels for you. They have a set of toasters for you to do it yourself. It’s a win-win, really. They can keep operations moving steadily behind the counter and eliminate risk of ruining a bagel and they enable the guests to toast exactly to their liking. (I wonder how many times they had to hear “Can I have another, not toasted as much?” before they had the idea.)

My day-gig implemented a support AI chat function to help users solve their problems themselves. It’s counter thinking to the “let me do everything for you” attitude or one that believes they are better off getting their hand held by a human.

Better to think of it as a DIY blend than a DIY model.

Stay Positive & How Can You Infuse More Into Your Brand/Biz?

The mark of a leader is that they speak up early.

But those who speak up early are rarely ever believed.

The reality of the words have not sunk in for them yet.

But the leader speaks up anyway.

One more mark of a leader: their effort isn’t to speak up then shut up so they can say “I told you so.”

Quite the opposite. They ought to never say “I told you so.” They ought to work the narrative to make the opinion they shared early relevant to all parties. Decisions need to be made from it. The mark of a leader is one that speaks up early…and often…and in ways that create change so there’s no “I told you so” moment and more of a “I’m glad we did X” chorus.

Stay Positive & A Chorus, Specifically, More Than One…