Strategy is hard. Tactics are easy. They let you off the hook if they don't work. And if they do, you can always take the credit for them. Strategy is hard. It's a game of patience, of letting things happen over time, of doing it with generosity and persistence.
Engaging with tomorrow. Tomorrow is going to come, whether we want it to or not. We can either invest our time and energy in getting through today or in making tomorrow better. The culture of hustling (working all the time), bingeing (streaming, food, alcohol) and isolation (social media) is designed to keep us
Without drama. You can show up where you need to show up, without drama. You can do what you can do, without drama. You can become what you seek to become, without drama. We ship our projects without drama. Because drama doesn't make our projects better. ~ Seth Godin
Telling the WE story. Some excerpts from The Art of Possibility by Rosamund Stone Zander & Ben Zander: (We have) distinguished a new entity that personifies the “togetherness” of you and me... This entity, the WE, can be found among any two people... and it can be thought of, in poetic terms, as a
Don't rush the other side. And don't keep it waiting either. Do what you need to get done with urgency. And let ideas, inspiration, love, outcomes take their time. As creatives, we dance with both urgency and patience: urgency with action and patience with results.
Show up. Whoever you think you want to engage with, show up. Be the gift, be positivity, be abundance, be love, be a contribution. See where they are seeking to go and align yourself in their journey. All of us can make someone’s day better by being our best selves.
Drip by drip. Trust builds drip by drip. Love builds drip by drip. Reputation builds drip by drip. The industrial era popularized the notion of getting selected and the proposal, because it helped their interests. The idea that all it takes is to shine one day in an interview (or a date) to
Running on empty. If you are running out of fuel or charge, it doesn't make much sense to keep pushing the accelerator. Yes, it may push the car a little bit forward with whatever fuel is left, but it won't be able to get you anywhere meaningful. Instead, what
The wind behind your back. There are people in our lives who make us feel the wind behind our back. They make things effortless. They root for us even if no one else is. More often than not, we tend to focus more on people who stop us in our tracks than the ones who
Toddler mode. A toddler wants what the toddler wants and it wants it now. It also doesn't care about how it gets it. Any means is okay including throwing a tantrum. We might sometimes get what we want when we act like a toddler, but that will alienate the people
In the face of fear. Fear shows up, on schedule, almost everytime we engage with possibility. That's a physiological trait. Hoping that it doesn't happen is wishful thinking and doesn't help us move forward. What matters is how we act when fear shows up. Do we outrightly reject it
Getting through turbulence. If we are on a flight and face turbulence, all we can do is to remain calm and let the turbulence pass through. Even if we are the pilot. The idea of jumping out of the plane because of turbulence sounds a bit far fetched. And, of course, you can&
Waiting for permission. If you want to be a graphic designer at a startup, why don't you start designing graphics for them already? If you want to lead the fund raising for an non-profit, why aren't you doing that already? If you want to build a connection with others,
Stop, Stop, Stop, Stop! Excerpt From Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert: “Around the age of fifteen, I somehow figured out that my fear had no variety to it, no depth, no substance, no texture. I noticed that my fear never changed, never delighted, never offered a surprise twist or an unexpected ending. My fear
Creating the conditions for better decision making. If you are hustled, anxious or rushed, it's unlikely you'd make a good decision. What's likely is that the discomfort will force you to make choices you wouldn't have chosen had the circumstances be different. Better decision making requires us to make
Holding onto hope. It's easy to lose hope, to look around and see nothing but despair and reasons why you should give up and accept that you are no good. Add to that the cultural narrative like "It's the hope that kills you" or "Hope is
Go or no go? How will a no-go decision make things better for later? Is it coming from fear or strategy? How will a go decision make things better for later? Is it coming from fear or strategy? We usually delay "go decisions" because they create tension both for ourselves and for
What can go wrong? This sounds like a negative question. It definitely sounds like a question we are likely to avoid. But if we ask this question much before things actually go wrong, we can plan for them. And make it less likely for them to derail our work. As Seth Godin says, resilience
The urge to tinker. When you build an elegant strategy, when you have a system that works, don't interrupt it. Don't get tempted by the short term exceptions. They seem harmless but they are not. They mess with the system. Many times, in order to achieve our goals, we need
A skill worth building. How to complete projects that matter to us: Get It Done: Complete Projects that Matter with Seth Godin Online Class | LinkedIn Learning, formerly Lynda.comLearn strategies to effectively tackle, finish, and ship projects that matter to you.LinkedIn Learning
The gift of letting go. When we let go of things, we allow ourselves to travel lighter. We can let go of wants and desires (for ourselves or for other people), we can let go of stories we are carrying that are not serving us anymore, we can let go of things we really really
Communicate, always. Just like over-hydration is a rarity, similarly over-communication is rare. Especially when the style of communication is concise and clear. Effective written communication makes it easier for the recipient to read (or skip) and to reply if a reply is needed. It allows us to share the relevant information with
The beauty of elegance. Elegance is simplicity, efficiency, and effectiveness. It’s not only a solution that gets a result. It’s arguably a better solution—the least complex and clearest way forward. An elegant strategy offers leverage in service of the change we seek. While it might seem effortless in execution, creating the
Proxy rewards. Proxy rewards are like pain killers. They take away the symptoms but don't do much for the underlying cause. Social media can become a proxy for connection, junk food can become a proxy for nutrition, drinking can become a proxy for fun and so on. The biggest danger
% chaos. The only way to keep things 100% organized is to not do anything. You don't ruffle any feathers, you don't make any ruckus, no one puts you on the hook for anything. On the other hand, complete chaos doesn't make things better, it mostly
