GarthBox

Good memory is less of a positive quality than we think.

Consider the barista who takes your order for a soy mocha frappe with extra chocolate chips and caramel drizzle and no whipped cream. What if she didn’t write it on the cup?

If it’s only you and her in the cafe, you may not worry much, but if there’s a long line…. well, this wouldn’t be the first time someone got your order wrong, and even in situations after they wrote the order down.

So you get nervous, anxious, concerned even. You watch her like a hawk as she makes your drink. Since she didn’t write the order down, you were left without peace of mind. You’re extra critical when you ought to be excited and filled with anticipation to receive your order.

When you discuss work, note-taking eases the mind of all those around you. It gives them confidence in you doing things right and shows you care enough to pay attention. It doesn’t matter if it’s all in your head and the work gets done perfectly. What matters is the emotions the customer, client or coworker has to go through before the actual work starts.

Remember the user experience, not just the end result.

 

Stay Positive & It Can Even Be A Stick Figure, But Take Notes

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Your competitors might be stupid, inactive, unproductive, disorganized and uncaring.

But taking this approach doesn’t help you because they still exist. Obviously their target doesn’t care enough to choose you instead. So there must be something else at work.

What if they were reliable (as shown through their guarantees) and discerning (as shown by the limited quantity of product they sell) and surprisingly creative (as shown through their packaging). Now we begin to see what qualities make them special… and we see that you’re trying to be reliable, discerning and surprisingly creative too.

The problem then is you’re no different from your competitor even if you are a bit smarter, a bit more active, a bit more productive, organized and caring. At each other’s core, you’re each trying to achieve the same brand status.

The key to boiling your competition down, isn’t to literally criticize them until they evaporate. It’s to think of them in the brightest light, almost as if you are the one running their company. What do they stand for?

Why would you then stand for the same thing?

It’s often unclear how similar you are to your competitors until you stop attacking them and start seeing them as they are: businesses that exist with a purpose and that have a core brand nature. Think deeply about what it is and you just may discover the real key to differentiating yourself.

 

Stay Positive & Gotta See The Tree Through The Forest

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I grew up being told not to go to someone with a problem and without a possible solution to it.

At minimum, this works better than going to someone with a problem and without a solution.

Better yet, is to go with questions. Questions about the problem. Questions about solutions.

Sometimes you may be able to think of the one greatest solution to the problem, but often it’s one mediocre solution, a solution that could be made better if you had asked the right questions and gotten others with a variety of experience involved.

There will always be someone better than you.

Why not seek them out, ask questions and arrive at a better solution?

 

Stay Positive & Or Is It An Ego Thing?

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Two minutes can save you hours.

Two minutes can save you dollars.

Two minutes can save the trust others have in you.

It often takes only two minutes to read the email again before you hit send. Two minutes to walk away and reenter a room with a clear mind. Two minutes to double-check your math. Two minutes to send an email expressing your appreciation for something a colleague did. Two minutes to breathe some life into your work. Two minutes to come up with a better word.

Two minutes here and there add up… but not as much as not using them subtracts from your growth, your impact and your chances of success.

 

Stay Positive & It’s Not A Waste, It’s An Investment

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There’s a healthy kind of pressure and a not-so-healthy kind we regularly put on ourselves.

The latter is the pressure to succeed, to be perfect, to over-achieve, to bite off more than one can chew, to live up to someone else’s expectations, to prove someone else wrong, to be flawless, to get the most eyeballs or to check a box.

That kind of pressure destroys people.

It kills motivation, it depletes willpower, and it puts an ugly twist on passion.

Simply put, the healthier type of pressure is about doing.

It’s about trying your best, building off past experiences, coming to terms with knowing that you can only create something as great as the information and experience you have up to this point; it’s about trying because you only fail when you don’t, it’s about proving yourself right, doing what you love, and knowing that next time will be better…and there will be a next time.

These two types of pressure feel drastically different, but we often ignore one.

 

Stay Positive & What Do You Say We Stop Ignoring It And Start Changing It?

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Thinking goes that if you’re the first in a market then you’re guaranteed success.

There’s no sense in opening a coffee shop two blocks from Starbucks or selling T-shirts from the back of your car when an average consumer passes 15 retail stores a day.

As I often like to say, if you think that, then you’ve thought wrong.

There are billions of markets. Small and large. There are neighborhood markets, city markets and, certainly, markets of one (you?). Markets are often unpredictable because if one has always purchased Starbucks, that doesn’t mean they will always purchase Starbucks. The story they want to hear (and tell themselves) tomorrow may be different from today.

They may be inspired by a friend to try something local for a change tomorrow and then you’ve got your shot. Now you have a consumer you never planned for, never thought you would have because you weren’t first in the market.

The stories and motivations people have change, and rapidly.

Likewise, the stories people tell one another are told at the fastest rate they’ve ever been told. Brand conversion is now often an invitation to brag about it, on social, to other friends, to coworkers. And suddenly, your market is looking bigger.

Until the story changes again. And it will.

 

Stay Positive & Will You Be Ready?

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The economy has changed.

We’re expected to open doors.

The more we open, the more rewarded we are.

What door are you opening?

 

Stay Positive & If There’s A Line, Why Try Budging? Why Not Just Open Another Door?

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