Why Try To Get Out Of Your Box, When You Can Use What's In It?
When you do things you love, you have more time to do things you love, when you spend that time doing more things you love, you strengthen your self-discipline, when you practice self-discipline, your self-esteem goes up, when your self-esteem goes up, you like and respect yourself more. Can you guess what you do when you like and respect yourself more? You do more things you love.
Stay Positive & Not Only Is It A Domino Effect, It’s Circular (HT to Brian Tracy)
You’ve sacrificed A for B, this for that, your money for the chance to get it back ten-fold, your time for the money you save not hiring someone else to do it. If you give something up for something you will benefit more from, is that a sacrifice? Or is calling it a sacrifice just having a poor perspective on the situation?
If you choose to stay up late to work on your startup, that’s not a sacrifice, it’s a smart choice.
If you choose to quit eating out so often so you can by a new camera for your photography project, that’s not a sacrifice, it’s a worthy decision.
Next time you say you’re making a sacrifice, really think about it.
Stay Positive & Calling It A Sacrifice Is Just Added Unnecessary Stress
We have all heard the good stories. Someone who starts with nothing ends up becoming successful. Someone who starts with something, but loses it ends up working smart enough to earn what they lost plus some. Someone who grew up in poverty broke the family tradition. Someone who had nothing growing up, started a successful business and now gives back to the community where they struggled.
The stories are all remarkable, but each person I’ve heard tell their comeback story forgets to note the most important factor.
You don’t need to fall down to make a comeback.
To be as successful as these people, you don’t need to make the same mistakes.
Stay Positive & Make New Mistakes To Talk About
Signs are brilliant. Truly, truly brilliant.
Don’t signs feel like a life saver when you’ve got to go to the bathroom, but don’t know where it is?
Or when your flight leaves in 10 minutes. The beauty of being able to look down at your ticket, look up and know where you need to go in a matter of seconds.
Anyone can make a sign, but the key is making the right sign. I want to type a list here of signs I’ve seen that didn’t matter to me, but that’s just the thing! I can’t remember the signs that didn’t matter. (nor does anyone else)
If you can, take a moment now and think what signs people who you work with are actually looking for from you or your business. Are the signs you have now answering the questions they have (or haven’t) thought of asking? If you’re hiring, why not hang a sign from the receptionist desk that reads “willingness to learn trumps talent.” Or hang a sign from your backpack that says “aspiring traveller.” Very rarely do signs go unread. At least give a shot at having them read what passersby, friends, clients want. Whether they know they want it or not.
Stay Positive & This Is A Sign
Seth Godin said a brand is the product of two things: prediction of what to expect times the emotional power of that expectation.
Where does the emotional power come from? That too is the product of two things: the relief in getting what you expect times the joy of getting more than you expected.
Earning trust isn’t about meeting expectations. More importantly, it’s not about lowering expectations so you can exceed them upon delivery. No. The good stuff, the brand, the trust; all of that comes from setting high expectations to begin with, but always finding a new way to surpass them.
Johnny Cupcakes, yet again, is my go-to. You get everything you expect (high quality content and packing), and inside the box I find something I didn’t expect, something goofy and special, something that brings me joy.
Relief and joy, two seemingly opposites actually make a perfect duo.
Stay Positive & Branding Is Making Bold Promises, But Always Over Delivering
Many of us get ourselves stuck in a situation requiring repetition, monotony and banal movement. Think about something you’ve had to do a thousand times or even a hundred times. Data entry. Licking envelopes. Picking four-leaf clovers. Opening every e-mail to make sure you don’t mistake something important for junk.
What do you get out of it in the end? Is it just a task completed and you move on to something new? Or do you look back at a job well done and consider how it can be better done next time.
Often times you’ll realize it can be better done next time by not being done at all.
Stay Positive & Cut The Quantity
1) Think of a moment of pure celebration, a moment you achieved something you had worked hard to achieve. That’s nice, isn’t it?
2) Go through your friends on Facebook and write on their walls a memory, a compliment, or an observation of their character that might not regularly be pointed out to them. That’s nice, isn’t it?
3) Dig through old boxes to find something you wrote when you were younger. A school paper, a journal, a love letter, a poem. That’s nice, isn’t it?
4) Write down the name of an idol or a mentor and then write one or two things you learned from them. Hand that note to someone and tell them how the person whose name you have written down made your life better. That’s nice, isn’t it?
5) Start a gratitude list by writing three things you’re thankful for each day. Start now. That’s nice, isn’t it?
6) Close your eyes. Take three deep breaths… taking in as much air as you can and pushing out as much air as you can. That’s nice, isn’t it?
7) Visit a past teacher with whom you were close to. That’s nice, isn’t it?
8) Say to yourself aloud that you love yourself. Squeeze or kiss yourself. That’s weird. But nice, isn’t it?
9) Go do something you did as a kid, something you haven’t done in years. That’s nice, isn’t it?
The list was inspired by Kurt Vonnegut’s advice to the young, “If this Isn’t Nice, What Is?” Not just something worth reading, but something worth acting on after reading.
Stay Positive & If These Aren’t Nice, I Don’t Know What Is
