GarthBox

Jerry Seinfeld has a method for all of his continued – and hysterical – madness. He has a calendar that, each day, he puts an X on once he’s completed his daily task.

He knows that we all love streaks. It’s a way we can gamify our lives, and in his case, a way to gamify success. The only thing we have to do is not break the streak.

For Tom Peters, he likes to think of things as being one minute away from continuing a streak – it’s not a significant amount. Another way to look at it as being one bite away.

Consider that you’re on a diet and you’ve fallen off track, you’ve broken the streak, but all you are is one bite away from getting back on board.

Let’s face it: The streak will get broken, so it’s worth having a mentality in place to start it up again.

Not with frustration or increased gumption or fear and shame, but with passion and contentedness.

And that’s where forgiveness comes in. Self forgiveness. The act of not getting hung up on breaking the streak. That’s the key to maintaining flow and momentum.

Stay Positive & Carry On

Photo credit

Some mentors may have all the smarts of what we are working with them to learn, but there might be a drag.

They might not understand the way we work and learn; how we appreciate feedback and what the root of our motivation for connecting with them was in the first place.

Too often in situations like this, we hold onto the mentor. We’ve been trained growing up to have one – that it’s better to have one than not.

That’s not quite true if we actually care about our development.

Better to let a mentor go even if that means we fly solo until we find another that gets us.

One of the worse decisions we can make is to hold onto something that’s supposed to help us move forward, but isn’t.

Stay Positive & Keep Searching. They Are Out There

Photo credit

Some (maybe you?) are auditory learners. They learn by listening. So to really think deeply about a topic or memorize a business strategy, they need to hear the thought leadership.

Then there are the visual learners. They learn by watching, observing, witnessing how things are done. What they see makes a real impact on them.

Lastly there are the kinesthetic learners. These are the one’s who need to be hands-on, tactile, experiencing the lesson to remember it. They won’t just read about how to play the trumpet, they have to do it, even if it’s poorly at first.

While we all have a way we learn better than the others (I’m a kinesthetic learner), there’s not a doubt that using each way to learn leads to better results than only choosing one path.

A car might get you from A to Z, but adding some nitrous oxide and a pair of solid tires will get you there faster. If you’re a visual learner, it still helps more than harms to listen and get hands-on with it, too.

Stay Positive & Read, Watch, Do, Repeat

Photo credit

A friend of mine was traveling back to the states, but got stuck in England because the airline she booked with went bankrupt and neglected telling her.

An author friend tried submitting her book to her first dream publisher and they said no.

A friend planned a brilliant educational event, but the venue never promoted it and no one but her two friends arrived.

Without notice, the bridge we think can bring us from where we are (point A) to where we wish to be (point B) can disappear. Poof.

My friend traveling has a whole new inventory of empathy after her experience, though, and she made it back safely with the helpful advice of a few friends.

My author friend submitted and published her own book and hundreds have already bought in and fell in love with the work.

The event friend, he ran it any way and picked up on some nuances that he’ll change for future events. Progress was still made.

Lesson is that the “poof” doesn’t mean it’s the end, it’s over, that moving on isn’t worth it.

If anything the poof is a signal we need to keep moving, find another way and learn how to build an alternate bridge.

Stay Positive & It’s Your Choice

Photo credit

After making a couple of assumptions like knowing where you want to go and maybe having planned a few different ways of getting there, then what?

Thinking through what you’ll do once you’re there is as important as thinking how to get there.

More often than not we reach our destination or at least some version of it.

Stay Positive & Might As Well Plan For It

Photo credit

Skimping out on the serving size of each customer who comes in the shop doesn’t have much of an impact in the moment and it’ll save you a few bucks.

Using a cheaper screw for a product that is “some assembly required” could lead to folks being frustrated, but not many. And if you’re selling 100,000 of the products, using the cheaper screw can save you a lot.

I wish it were true that making selfish business decisions was a slippery slope, but for most, it’s not. Brand erosion is more like a sine wave that has a downward trajectory. Decisions are made to cut costs and then a smaller “feel good” decision is made to try to make up for the selfish one.

Eventually, the brand erodes. Not as quickly as we like, but it does.

The paradox is that the same can be said for giving a customer an extra serving every now and then and investing in a tougher screw (but not any of the other product elements).

I wish it were true that making selfless decisions from time to time was a guarantee for success, but for most, it’s not.

Brand erosion happens when there’s a lack of consistency.

Written differently, brand loyalty, success and impression happens when there’s a consistency of the way one does things, preferably the selfless things.

Stay Positive & What’ll Your Brand Stand For?

Photo credit

People … coworkers, family members, friends … come in and out of our lives.

Last I recall, it had always felt good to get a note from someone I hadn’t heard of in a while, to get a voicemail, to receive an actual letter in the mail.

I’m also sure we can list a lot of people who haven’t checked in in quite some time.

Doesn’t it make you wonder whose list you’re on?

Stay Positive & Maybe It’s Time To Make Time

Photo credit