Holidays from the everyday
Have you ever gone on holiday and suddenly life seemed a lot clearer? You didn’t plan to reflect on life, but getting away from the everyday helped you understand it more. You then returned from your holiday recharged and energised to make changes. Unfortunately, you quickly slipped back into your normal routine, and the desire […]
Refining your focus
When faced with a problem, we can struggle to take action because we’re overwhelmed with choosing an effective response. Here’s a simple exercise to help you move forward. First ask what could I do? Give yourself the freedom to explore and capture as many responses as possible. Then ask what should I do? Identify the […]
Business partners
It’s special to consider that when you go into business or create an initiative, each person who advances your initiative is essentially partnering themselves to the same cause. You may think that every initiative needs volunteers or employees or contractors. But it’s more than that. Out of all the things they could do with their […]
Prepping your references
When you ask someone to be a reference for a job application, it’s important to provide them with context of your request. This is because your reference has a particular perspective of you from the time you shared together. If you don’t provide them with context, they may not draw on relevant examples when asked […]
A switch is flicked
When you truly commit to something, it’s like a switch is flicked inside you. You feel compelled to align your actions to achieve your goal, and the prospect of doing anything that will hinder your progress becomes unbearable. It really is that binary. If you want to make a commitment, do all you can to […]
Paying for credit card rewards
Many of us get a credit card because we’re attracted to its rewards. But the credit card industry can only operate if the costs we pay for them exceed the rewards we receive from them. This means on average a credit card is a net cost rather than a net benefit. You may think you’re […]
Just start
We know things take longer to do than we expect. This awareness should spur us to action. Yet we delay and defer. How much longer are you willing to wait to start what needs to be done? .
Shut up and take my money
When a customer is prepared to give you their money, make sure it is as clear and easy as possible for them to do so. This may seem common sense, but you’ll be amazed by how many sales are lost from vague payment terms. Businesses spend so much time and effort trying to find customers […]
Light often > Heavy rarely
Every system you create in life will naturally degrade. To manage this decline, you can let the system run and restore it later. Or you can maintain the system while it runs. Our default is usually the former. Unfortunately with this approach, the longer the system degrades, the more it costs to restore it. So […]
Assessing mistakes
Mistakes will appear in everything we do. So success isn’t about the elimination of mistakes – it’s about understanding the likelihood of mistakes occurring. With any pursuit or activity, try to determine a baseline for failures or errors. If it’s an activity you want to sustain, track your performance over a period of time. If […]