GarthBox

Tension moves things forward. It spurs action. It breaks bad habits.

The greatest stories, if you dissect them, are a symphony of tense moments – that’s creative writing at the core.

The greatest salespeople are those who leverage tension to move a prospect along the buying journey.

The greatest coworkers are the ones who can both be pushed forward with tension as well as do the pushing on us.

They say if you can’t take the heat, get out of the kitchen.

I’d add, if you can’t offer the heat, get out of the kitchen, too.

Stay Positive & Strategize The Tension

Team-based selling outsells siloed with every deal.

Incentives directed at team progress over individual progress inspires everyone more.

A single person can come up with a great idea, but it takes a group to make that idea magical.

Have you noticed that every improvisor and stand-up comedian takes on different personas and voices during their show?

The faster you lean into a team mentality, the faster you’ll get where you want to go.

It even ties to the adage, you can have everything you want if you help enough other people get what they want.

Stay Positive & Where’s Your Team?

Progress is made when the fear of staying the same outweighs the fear of change.

I’d argue greater progress happens when the alternative of moving forward is harder or scarier than the main option of how to move forward.

Consider the order in which you completed your last to-do list; I’m sure you chose the items to do in the order you did because the alternatives sounded worse.

Cleaning windows of a storefront is more fun to do when the other option is to clean the toilets.

If you’re stuck (or just want to move forward faster), find something worse than the action that will actually get you moving.

Can’t find something? Then make it up.

Stay Positive & Whatever It Takes

Then you better know it.

Stories from others. Experience from yourself. Have read books about it.

And even then, double check it before you talk about it.

Is it still accurate?

There was a day that one person told another that it’s impossible to split the atom, even though it was done and shared in the newspaper that morning – they simply didn’t read the paper yet.

Stay Positive & Know It Thennnnn Show & Tell

If you’re telling a joke, it’s far more impactful if you work your way to the punchline than if you start with the punchline.

Same goes for selling a product; it’s far more impactful to lead a prospect to your product than it is to lead with your product.

Stay Positive & It Applies To All Communication, Really

Which is harder? The up front planning, setting the stage, building out the roadmap or delivering on the action items, meeting the deadlines, and rallying the team to complete each step?

The answer of course is: yes.

Going into both with the mindset that it’s meaningful work is exactly what makes the work meaningful.

Anything short of that just won’t add up.

Stay Positive & The Equation Needs To Be Balanced

When a joke hits right, the connection between the storyteller and the audience increases exponentially.

You probably didn’t need convincing of that.

What you may need convincing of is that though when a joke falls flat, you may get questionable looks or a headshake or deadpan silence, it’s only temporary.

If there’s one thing people move quickly on from it’s humor.

Which is to say they move on even from good humor.

(Can you recall any of the jokes from the last stand up show opener that you laughed hard at?)

All the more reason that humor needs to be shot after shot to be effective.

Stay Positive & Huh Huh