GarthBox

Life isn’t like a scale in which we can place an item on the left and an item on the right and it will stay balanced.

Even when we find equilibrium, it’s only temporary.

Too many outside forces. Too many internal desires. Too much life happens.

The fortunate part of it is that you can choose which way the scale tips when it’s out of balance.

Such is life, really.

You have the option to over communicate more the under communicate; to lift someone up more than shame them; to listen more than you speak; to act selflessly more than selfishly.

Yes, in a perfect world, there’s a perfect balance.

But we don’t live in a perfect world. (And if you’re like me, you don’t want to.)

Stay Positive & You Control Which Way The Scale Tips

To make progress, you don’t always have to leap for yourself.

In fact, leaping for someone else may be the better move in the end.

You’ll get everything you want in life if you help enough others get what they want.

When it’s about them, it makes the leaping less scary, doesn’t it?

Stay Positive & The Running Start Is Yours

If you’re going to have a regret, would you rather it be for an action you took or for standing still?

If you’ve got an extra 30k to invest in your marketing, would you put it toward a new action or more of the same thing you’ve done?

If you’ve got the hots for someone, which do you think is more productive: asking them on a date or waiting for them to ask you?

Every day. Every moment. The option is ours. The choice to act or not.

Stay Positive & Why The Hesitation When You Know Which Is Better?

Did you experience it? Actually experience it?

What did it smell like? What did it sound like? What did it feel like…physically? emotionally? mentally?

In your words, how would you describe it?

Not being able to readily answer the questions begs one: did you actually experience it?

Stay Positive & In Means All In

All three of those words typically lead to disappointment.

But they don’t have to.

Not to that high of a level of disappointment.

Consider the beer bar that puts a sign on the empty shelf stating “fresh options coming Thursday” versus just leaving the shelf empty. Disappointing, maybe still, but now there’s something to look forward to.

Joking to a mother saying the goblins ate all the sugar waffle cones to ease the disappointment of her child who came in wanting one made all the difference to their experience. Disappointed still, yes, but no tears.

The level of disappointment we create is a choice.

Best we plan for how we’ll act when a delivery never arrives, when something spoils, when we’re late to an important gathering and so on.

Stay Positive & Think Of It Like A New Way To Prepare For The Worst

You might not have a pen and paper handy, but you’ve got your phone or a computer or someone near by that can give you a way to capture a bit of info.

That bit of info strengthens any following connection. And if there is no following connection, you lose nothing but the 20 seconds it took to make a note since you can’t rely on your brain.

There’s a reason servers who remember a name get bigger tips or hairdressers who remember a bit of info you shared at your first visit end up with you revisiting again and again.

And before you argue… it’s fine that they wrote it down. It’s actually more heartfelt because they care enough to document rather than trust their memory.

People who try to memorize directions waste mental space. It’s no different than remembering a birthday or a trip a person has upcoming. Why rely on your brain to remember and risk the relationship.

The big difference between directions and information about someone? If you forget directions, you merely get temporarily lost. If you forget personal info, you lose the richness that comes with connection – a win-win situation.

One note to yourself will make a world of difference.

Stay Positive & Take Note

There are five love languages.

It’s easy to gather an understanding of each and then ask others to share theirs so you can relate more thoroughly.

But here’s what a google search about them doesn’t get you.

Just because someone has one love language, does not mean the others don’t matter.

Consider this: if you want to be in a relationship then they need to be trustworthy. But don’t they also need to have a bit of personality, a touch of humor, and a dose of selflessness?

The same can be said about anything we think is the “most important.”

Shame on us if we interpret “most” important as the “only” important element.

It’s not.

Stay Positive & Go Deep, Of Course. But Broad, Too.