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You should be a poet
We can all be poets if we apply our mind and our intentions. What’s a poet? I think it can simply be someone who chooses to try and write beautifully. I think it can be you. There is no governing body that says who can and who can’t be poetic. One simply chooses to try.…
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Some perspective to get perspective.
Take a few minutes to stare off into the distance; it creates perspective. Pun intended. Allowing your mind to wander frees it up to make connections. So getting some visual perspective can facilitate mental perspective.
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Don’t fool yourself
Something that’s helped me understand and pursue happiness is learning to tell the difference between when I want something and when I want the IDEA of something. I think we often get them confused. Do I want to look like a Men’s Health cover model? If course I do! Actually no, I don’t. I only…
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The habit of habits
To be successful, we must develop the habits of success. And what are the habits of success? The first is the habit of habits… “The nature of men is always the same; it is their habits that separate them.” Confucius “Success is nothing more than a few disciplines, practiced every day. Failure is nothing more…
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AND, a tool for addition.
I think a life full of beautiful moments is desirable AND I think we can create more of those moments. Yes, and… It’s one of the tools that can increase the chances that a moment turns out to be beautiful. If you find yourself wanting to use the word BUT, replace it with AND… “Yes,…
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Be bad.
Are you going to do something bad this week? I hope so. Not bad as in naughty, not something immoral. Bad as in, of a lower quality than you’d like it to be one day. My guitar playing is REALLY bad. But everyone who is good at something was bad at it first. When we…
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Beautiful moments, big and small.
I was recently at the coast and had some great sunrises over the ocean. When we’re away we tend to go and look for those beautiful moments because the location is novel. But the city has great sunrises and sunsets too. It’s possible to have a more beautiful life by increasing the number of beautiful…
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The Practice = 2+2
I like to do a quick skim of a book I’m about to read to start building the semantic tree on which to hang what I learn when I get into the book, and what I was struck by as I skimmed through The Practice by Seth Godin was that it doesn’t actually appear to…
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Getting started with ‘Traction’ by Gino Wickman
Traction by Gino Wickman puts foward a structure for running a business, a game plan. I know a few founders who’ve just got the book and I’ve invited them to a reading club with a twist; a doing club. Doing because a book like Traction isn’t just meant to be read, it’s meant to be…
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How To Achieve The Greatest Victory.
Often we have big dreams for tomorrow, dreams of the things we want to do in this world, of the people we will become. We may even have the aptitude and the skill. And yet somehow there seem to be periods where we make little progress. What happens? What gets in the way? Almost all…
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The Job Of a Founder Is “Recipe Discovery”
“If you personally want to grow as fast as your company, you have to give away your job every couple months.” Molly Graham If we begin solving any new puzzle in our companies with the intention that we’re going to give that job away in 3 months, then we set about solving it differently. We…
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[Growth] is the meaning and the purpose of [Business], the whole aim and end of [Startup] existence
Life is easier when we have a North Star. These rules / maxims / mental models / values, call them what we will, switch us into system 1 thinking and free us from analysis paralysis. When we encounter a hard problem, we reach into our bad of cognitive rules, pull out the appropriate one and…
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How To Win In The Post-Service Economy
Service has become commoditised. We expect our food will be prepared quickly, and we expect that the food will be great, because great service is the new minimum expectation. We only go to the restaurant / hotel / mechanic / insert-your-business-here if it has 4 or 5 stars. Only 3 stars? Meh … Great service…
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Scaling A Personal Services Business Through Experience Design
I was chatting to a physiotherapist this morning; she’s in the process of opening her third practice. One of the challenges she faces in scaling her business is that physiotherapy, like other personal service businesses, is frequently built on personal brands. Her clients like her. They don’t want to be treated by another physio in…
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How To Increase The Quantity And Quality Of Our Purpose-Full Epiphanies
Our biology can increase the number of epiphanies we have by strengthening relevant mental connections and pruning away connections to irrelevant ideas, providing we tune our biology towards our purpose journey.
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Rituals Are A Secret Weapon To Defeat `The Scroll´, And Be The Person We Want To Be.
A ritual is an act that sends a signal, often of a transition. When facing down the distractions of the ‘Scroll’, rituals are our secret weapon.
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Three Small Business Misconceptions, And Suggested Books To Read.
‘What is your “job” when you start a business’; ‘What “recipe” to use’; and ‘Choosing your target market’ are areas often misunderstood by entrepreneurs.
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To Flourish, We Must Consciously Choose Our Habits, And Practice Them Daily.
In order to be the best version of ourself, to achieve a complete and happy life, we must consciously choose our habits and practice them daily.
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When To Have A Say Yes Attitude, And When To Say No.
When we are between purposes, say Yes to almost everything. When we are on-purpose, say No to almost everything.