It’s not you vs your boss, your colleague, your partner, your friend, your child.
It’s not us vs the bigots, the social media, the conservatives, the progressives.
We suffer as they suffer. You feel as they feel. I act as you act.
Life is not a dichotomy and you are very rarely required to take sides.
It’s in the shades that we meet and thrive.
Every product presentation in B2B and Saas goes like: here is our product, here is what it does, here is why it is different, do you have any questions? And the audience feels like being at a party where the host only talks about themselves.
Why not try instead: you start your day at the office with a cup of coffee, and instead of *normal situation that causes pain*, this happens. Followed by a detailed description of how the new way of working looks and feels like, from the perspective of who you are talking with.
We know how to tell a story. We just need to stop pretending that when it comes to business people do care about different things. They don’t. They are people. And at least at the beginning, you have to hook them with something that is relevant to them.
What if you are not it?
What if you are not the best choice for that role you so much want?
What if you are not the outstanding writer you have worked so hard to become?
What if you are not the father of the year?
What if you are not the person that will lead the company out of the crisis?
What if you are not the one who has a solution for every problem?
We rarely plan for failure, but at some point, we ought to consider the possibility that we are simply not it. Perhaps, we are not the main character, after all. What happens when we realize that?
There are still a lot of things we can be. We can be the guide, the supporting role, the cameo, or the director. We can still play a part and also decide that, after all, it is not the movie we want to be part of.
A narrow approach will limit our peripheral view.
And there’s so much more out there that’s waiting to be appreciated.
That thing that’s keeping you from delivering on your promise – to yourself or to someone else. Is that an excuse or a reason?
People – ourselves included – have little tolerance for excuses. If we keep repeating them over and over again, they do not become more acceptable. They simply make the relationship more difficult.
Understand the difference and take a stand.
Fun fact: we tend to hide excuses, burying them inside long monologues or beyond a volatile interpretation of data. Reasons, on the other end, emerge whenever we need to strengthen a connection.
You need to deploy a lot of strength to get rid of bad habits.
If you check your phone every five minutes, that’s a feeling of continuos anticipation of what you might learn.
If you read work emails in the evenings, that’s a feeling of commitment and importance and busyness.
If you eat a sweet snack four or five times a day, that’s a feeling of satisfaction and fullness.
Of course, tha aftermath of a bad habit is never as good as the moment that leads to it. But we are creatures of inputs, not creatures of outputs. We care about what comes before – the thoughts, the wondering, the emotions.
That’s why you need strength to get rid of a bad habit. Start with the phone, the emails, the snack, whatever you know will lead you there.
Half measures do not work in this case.
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