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One Thing
I had a bad pain week this week. My normal coping strategies weren’t working. Relief was rare and elusive. I only have a handful of productive hours in this state, so I need to be ruthless. What is the one thing I can do today that will make the biggest difference for my…
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Always Be Ready To Make a Deal
I went into a conversation expecting a very easy negotiation. It was a mentorship program I wanted to sign up for. I knew what previous coaches had paid for the mentorship program and knew the coach running it wanted me to join. It sounded like I would make him more money than other coaches in…
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What is the Goal?
I read a book summary of “The Goal” by Eliyahu M Goldratt and the core contention seems to be: “Every action that brings a company closer to its goal is productive. Every action that does not bring a company closer to its goal is not productive.” What is “The Goal” of your business?…
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Consistency > Output
I got out of bed today and had a horrible pain in my neck. It’s rare, but I have had it a few times before. When I push myself too hard, especially when cutting corners on sleep, I can get a few different signals that my body is not happy with me. This is one…
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Life is Like Playing Mario
Progress with health problems is like when I would play Mario on an old gameboy as a kid. I would go through each level and sometimes it was easy, and sometimes it was hard. When it was hard, sometimes I’d die and have to start over at my last checkpoint. Sometimes that checkpoint was before…
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Negative Space
One of my clients has been experimenting with creating more space in his day after work. He’ll get off work a little earlier and do whatever he needs to do for “life” stuff – unpack, re-register his car, change over insurance, etc. before bedtime. This “negative space” is allowing him to get administrative tasks done,…
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“Unproductive” Saturdays
“Unproductive” Saturdays are sometimes the most productive day of the week. When I try to make every day as productive as possible, I will crash and have a very unproductive day (or days) and worsening health symptoms. What I do on these “unproductive” Saturdays matters. Video games and watching TV do not relax me the…
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How much is too much?
I was talking to a client about how to judge when too much is too much — and then I didn’t. This client was talking about how he generally does better if he takes a quarter to a third of the days off in a month. He wants to try to do that on the…
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Make It About Them
All of the best connections I’ve made have been focused on the other person without expecting anything in return. Sometimes I make it about me, and it doesn’t work. When I make it about the person I’m talking to, that’s when impactful moments and deep connections are born. I think of prompting my grandpa to…
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What’s the First Obvious Action?
I was talking to a client today about how even finding the right phone number to call can make a big difference in whether or not we call to negotiate a bill or make an appointment. If we know the number we can stick it next to the to-do item in our list. We both…