How To Fall In Love With Hard Work
There’s no movie montage.There’s no Rocky music.There’s no one following you with a camera.
What most people think “hard work” looks like just isn’t the case.
Hard work is getting out of bed when it’s cold and the sun hasn’t come up, yet.Hard work is having the difficult conversation with your teammate and redirecting their behavior.Hard work is trying to empathize with someone you totally disagree with.
And it’s the hard work that pushes us to our limits and tests our discipline.
It’s the hard work that helps challenge us to be better versions of ourselves.
What great opportunity!
This gratitude for challenging circumstances can totally transform our outlook!Even when you drop the ball and mess up: the good news is that every day, we get another shot.No matter how bad yesterday was, the sun just keeps coming up.It’s relentless!Just like you.
2 Minute Action
If you want to call in love with hard work, you need to build a relationship with it.You have to trust that it will pay off later and that it will make you stronger.Here are some examples of hard work that you can do in 2 minutes or less:Tell your partner you were wrong and want to make things better.Tell your boss you feel disrespected in the office.Do 2 minutes of burpees or pushups.You can absolutely build a habit or challenge yourself in 2 minutes or less.It’s just always up to you to show up and make it happen.
Why You Should Learn To Micromanage
Somehow, somewhere, the term “micromanage” got a bad name.If you have a team or confident experts, yeah, sure, micromanagement is a poor strategy, but what about the opposite?
How can micromanagement make sense?
If your new hire is low in skill and also low in confidence, you may need to use micromanagement to get them to proficiency.They need job knowledge first, which can require hand holding and frequent check-ins. A high level of accountability and transparency will also help make expectations clear and failures/successes visible.Gaining job knowledge will lead to successful completions of tasks and projects which will lead to opportunities for praise which will lead to increased confidence.To be clear: I’m NOT saying micromanagement is the answer to all management issues, it’s just a tool in the tool-belt of a competent manager.
2 Minute Action
Who is someone on your team or in your life who needs support, coaching, or feedback?Categorize them, here. Are they high or low in confidence? Are they high or low in skill/job knowledge?If they are high in both, consider using a hands-off approach.If they are low in both, consider using a micromanagement approach.
🏡 Don’t Build A House On Atlantic Avenue
Atlantic Avenue is a really stupid place to build a house.
The rent costs $150 each and the rent with 1 house is only $110.
It’s also a really unlikely place for someone to land on the board, so the opportunities to get rent payments is way lower than other properties.
You can still buy the property and sell it to someone else who wants it, but use it as leverage—don’t invest in it.
What does the game Monopoly have to do with living a happy and productive life?
You have a limited amount of time, energy and resources.
It’s up to you to choose the projects and missions you will spend your time on.
You already have a lot of odds against you.
Building anything is hard enough all by itself.
If you’re going to invest in something, it’s important to increase your probability of success.
Monopoly is pretty straightforward and there are a billion statistical analyses and strategies you can dig up online.
Life and work are less straightforward and they’re up to you.
This isn’t about real estate, business, or board games—this is about focusing on the known game-changing factors that actually matter and increasing your chances of success.
Here are some questions you can ask yourself to get started:
What are other people doing in your industry?
What are the characteristics of the successful big league players?
What might you do differently to stand out?
What is it that you do that is scarce and valuable?
What problem are you actually solving?
(Hint: it’s not that a customer has 4 widgets and they need 5, it’s because they’re lonely, hungry, or they have low self esteem. You need to dig deep into the basic mechanisms of behavior!)
2 Minute Action
Write a new email headline and A/B test it with your audience.
Steal someone else’s marketing concept and test the offer with your customers.
Do the math to figure out how many other competitors you have and look realistically at your chances of success. (FYI, If you’re starting a business in any industry, your odds are 1:10 right out of the gate, on average)