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There’s an ol’ productivity hack of running down your list of to-dos, and if you can do something within a few minutes, then do it.

It provides mental space for tackling the bigger projects and reduces the anxiety of a long to-do list. Turns out that we see a lot of our tasks bigger than what they actually are.

However, when it comes to telling others that you’ll do something, it ought to be treated with the same three-minute rule. If you’re not able to show action toward doing what you said in the first few minutes of saying it, then don’t make the promise.

The gap of time between doing what we say is ever-shrinking. People are watching, assessing and altering the amount of trust they give someone based on how quickly you begin doing what you say you’d do.

 

Stay Positive & Promises Are For The Present

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You can have the most remarkable product, but people are programmed to rationalize why what they have right now is the right thing to have, even if they are irrational about it.

That’s why it’s so important to start with the pain point.

What in their story do they dislike? It’s okay to point out that bottled beer is more expensive in trades because of the weight and that they are better off trading canned beer instead.

Once you’re on the same page of what the pain point is, trust develops.

From there, your solution speaks for itself.

 

Stay Positive & One More Reason To Listen, Not Shout

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Shout… or listen.

Cut costs… or create more value.

Take it personally… or learn from it.

Turn a cold shoulder… or ask why until you understand.

Wait for responsibility to be given… or take it.

Critique to death… or make it better.

Stand still… or move forward.

Shortcut… or long haul.

 

Stay Positive & They Are All Choices, Which Means You Have Control Over Them

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It’s tough to find people who will say yes to an opportunity, no matter how awesome of an idea or project you’re proposing.

However, it’s easy to build a résumé full of opportunities by being the one who says yes to others.

It’s been said that the best way to make more friends is to be one.

The same goes for being part of opportunities that are bigger than yourself.

 

Stay Positive & Are You Open To It?

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Many play the victim of strategies, systems, processes and organizations.

They think the hierarchy is the hierarchy and they blame it for being unable to move up.

They think the policy is the policy and there’s nothing they can do about it.

Of course, the opposite is true.

The scheme isn’t at fault, people are, and the beauty about people within any organization is that they can change and with them, their policies.

…but it won’t happen if the role of responsibility is traded for the role of victim.

 

Stay Positive & Stop Complaining, Start Convincing

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Books, and more importantly, full bookshelves used to be a sign of wealth.

If you could own a personal library, then you were influential, a connector. You were the bridge between “others” and “people like you.” Personal libraries created gatekeepers of information.

However, as industrial work shifted and the digital age (paired with the connection economy) developed, personal libraries shrunk. They no longer provided the benefits they once had.

You don’t visit a friend to read in her study. Knowledge is now determined by your level of experience and leadership, not access to information. The connection economy did away with gatekeepers; now we can connect and learn from someone willing to share their secrets from around the world without having to put shoes on.

Now, personal libraries (or bookshelves in most cases) emit an air of selfishness and egoism that many attempt to rationalize in ways, such as, “I have fond memories of the book” or “Maybe I’ll read it again” or “It reminds of a significant lesson about life or work.”

Although, if so significant, do you need the book to remember it. And, pulling from the atmosphere of selfishness, must you hold onto the book and prevent another from learning and utilizing the same lesson(s) you have?

And, that drives the point of why any author writes: to create change.

Historically, yes, it was to make money, but just as musicians make the majority of their money from shows and not CDs, so does the author who speaks about the book she has written.

So what to do in an age where retaining binded-copies-of-paper-with-words-in-them’s significance has diminished? Either rent from a library or a my free little library and put it back when you’re done or once you’re finished with a book, pass it on.

There’s no grand benefit to a book collection. All you’re doing is preventing another from experiencing what the author intended for one to experience, and in the long run, for the world to be a fuller, more connected and better understood place.

 

Stay Positive & Bookcases Aren’t For Books Anymore

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It’s incredible how a relationship can shift for the better when you show up without a request every once and awhile.

There’s nothing you need. No wish-for. Just a sincere visit.

We all want to feel needed, but there’s a limit.

 

Stay Positive & Connect

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