I want to introduce a perspective, and that perspective can be captured in one single word - “Good.” Train yourself to say “good” as your default way of thinking about things. This forces you to process things in a way that is more positive because it needs to match the positive angle you chose to take. Let me give a few examples.

Told you need to work late on Tuesday? Good! That means you’re an important member of the team and you have job security. Was your car broken into and a few personal items stolen? Good. That person probably needed that stuff more than you did. Did your best friend split up with her long-time boyfriend? Good. Now she can be more okay discovering herself all over again.

Do you see how that works? If you choose to respond to different situations with the answer “good” before anything else, it shapes the way you perceive it. 

But now when it comes to growing this habit, and really ingraining this idea in your psyche, it needs to start with gratitude. You need to be intentional about priming your brain to see things through a positive lens, and that must first be established effortfully and consciously before it becomes a subconscious process. However it doesn’t need to be that effortful, it can be as simple as taking 30 seconds to write in a  gratitude journal everyday, just giving your brain enough to flex its gratitude muscle.

What do you think of when I ask the question, “Where do you want to go in life?” Is it building a world-changing business, raising a family, pursuing a hobby? No one else can answer that question for you, and you might not even know the answer yourself, which is totally normal, but ultimately you can’t get there if you don’t define it.

To extend this metaphor let’s just say that “where you want to go in life” is a physical destination.

In pursuit of that life, there are two important factors to keep in mind, your speed and direction. First, your speed determines how fast you’re making up ground, it’s the rate of progress by which you close the gap and how quickly you move. Then, the direction is exactly that - It’s about where you are pointed and having a direct route with your movement. 

These two factors work hand-in-hand because going fast doesn’t matter if you’re not going the right way, and if you’re going the right way but not fast enough you may never get there. It’s a chicken or the egg kind of situation. My general recommendation is dependent on what you’re pursuing. If you’re casually searching for your final destination, where you want to end up, then less direction and more speed could be helpful to get you to try more things faster. If you’re being more critical and intentional in search of that destination, then it might make sense to prioritize your direction before investing in the speed.

I hope that idea makes sense, but the bottom line is - Recognize the way that both direction and speed play a role in your life. Everyone’s path is their own, going at their own speed and toward their own destination, and it’s important to figure out what is uniquely best for you.

Is it good to be competitive? This hits really close to home for me. Growing up with an older brother and being a collegiate athlete, competition has been an integral part of my life. I’ve always been told that being competitive is a good thing - It helps make you a better businessperson, you’re more passionate and committed, and you’re seen as someone who can get things done no matter the opposition. But taking a step back, I’m not so sure I buy it.

The very spirit of competition means that two people are competing for the same thing, whether that’s a championship, a job or a romantic partner. Underlying the idea of competition is scarcity, and that there’s only so much to go around. It’s either you or them that gets it. I do think competition plays a healthy role in society - It drives innovation, it sets higher expectations, and it motivates a lot of people, but I think competition should be reserved for the right contexts.

For myself, and with my background I feel like I’m supposed to be competitive. But I feel like I’m misunderstood and that my natural state is actually more collaborative than competitive. It doesn’t upset me if I lose a casual game, and when I do go the extra mile to win it’s for the intrinsic fulfillment of executing rather than proving my worth in beating someone or something else.   

I share this perspective because maybe you can relate to it. Maybe you’re a frenemy always trying to one up your best friend. Maybe you’re in a sibling rivalry. Or maybe you’re jockeying for position with a work colleague. When is it right to be competitive? I don’t know, I have a lot of figuring out to do on that myself, and maybe you could benefit from learning more about how you relate with being competitive too.

As we talk every day about improvement and generating personal and professional outcomes in our lives, we often think about it very formally. While making progress might seem most urgent and necessary in key areas of your life, I want to remind you that we’re constantly making progress in everything we do. And there’s even value to seeking improvement in not so important areas of your life, because it refreshes you on some of the fundamentals.

For that reason, it could be really valuable to be a beginner at something. I feel like we have this pressure to be great at everything we do, and when we abide by that we lose sight of a lot of opportunity to grow. Whether you pick up a new hobby you enjoy like playing guitar, painting, or writing poetry... Or want to learn a new skill like how to change a flat tire, there is a lot of value from starting at the very beginning with something. 

First, the task gets you thinking in new ways. Doing new behaviors activates new areas of your brain, making connections that might be helpful in other areas of your life. Second, it’s humbling. Embracing something that you’re not good at reminds you that there’s so much to learn, and it gives you a new-found appreciation for those who are good in that area and the work they put in to develop it. 

Then probably most importantly, it teaches you all over again how good it feels to get better at something. This is because when it comes to learning new things, you can get a lot better very quickly. In a matter of hours you can feel the results of progress, and be inspired to continue developing other areas of your life knowing that the work you’re putting in is helping to generate improved results.

So be the beginner! Take some time this week to do something new - Learn how to fold origami, play a new sport, I don’t care! - and let the fulfillment of fast progress motivate you to push on!

If you feel you like you’re a little different, like there’s something about you that isn’t normal or average, then good! That’s what matters about people. That’s when you really get to know people, and that’s something I want to get better at probing understanding and getting to know about others. Most importantly, that thing about you should be embraced! In fact, Quentin Allums believes that a commonality we share is that we're all a bit uncommon.

Quentin has leveraged being different to grow a personal brand because, different stands out. People remember different. So let’s take this to heart, both in the way we express ourselves externally (making sure to capture the essence of who we are and what we can uniquely offer), as well as being committed to discovering the same in other people as well. There is so much untapped opportunity, talent, and potential that goes to waste because as a society we’re afraid to share how we’re different. But we’re all misfits, and that’s what people care about, so let it shine!

Let’s go back to a quote we all know and trust. But instead of just saying it, let’s think about what it really means when we believe it. That quote is “Everything happens for a reason.” 

The way I see it, life is a string of events. One opportunity, decision, or conversation leads to the next which leads to the next, and it’s only after you’ve gone so far and look back that you can see how it all went down. Oftentimes these reflections are triggered by positive events, and when you trace backwards you understand how negative moments were necessary guiding stars on your way to your final destination.

You usually think of “everything happening for a reason” when trying to understand why something bad happened. The quote helps you to be more mindful and curious about how that thing might be serving you or preparing your or teaching you for the future. While that’s hard and unnatural to do, because we very much are biased to optimize for short-term outcomes over delayed gratification, it gives negative events meaning. 

Rooted in all of this is a belief that at the end of the day, you’re going to get where you’re meant to go. Having faith in that process, and trusting that “everything happens for a reason” holds you accountable to seeing the things around you from a new perspective, which helps to motivate you to get back on track toward your dreams.

Fear is very contextual. It’s not the act itself that is fearful, but it’s the potential consequences of the act that make us feel fear. These consequences are heavily determined by our environment, so in understanding that fear means just as much about you as the context around you, you may be able to better separate yourself from the emotion and take decisive action. 

For example, last week I was invited to be on a TV show pitch competition to talk about my social impact company For Purpose. I rehearsed, memorized, and did everything I could to try to simulate the nerves and fear I would feel during the pitch in order to best prepare myself. That’s when I realized, whether I was practicing the pitch in front of the mirror or performing it live for the judges on the TV show, the task was the same - Just go through my memorized speech. But, the context was very different, and it was “doing it live” that evoked so much fear. 

I mention this all to provide a new context to fear. Fear isn’t about you, it’s about the way you feel in an environment. In the moments before giving my pitch I used Josh Perry’s life mantra - “Fear is a thought and thoughts can change.” So whether you’re afraid of standing up to your boss, or disciplining a child, or trying something new, recognize that it’s the context of the activity that provokes fear.

Typically, when you think of resources you think of money. That’s likely because money is the most standardized currency we have in society, and it give us the ability to reciprocate value. But money in of itself isn’t worth anything. When money can be used to help you with your other resources it starts to become effective. 

To touch on some of these alternative resources, they’re things like being able to participate emotionally with others through compassion and empathy, your perspective and creative thinking, and your time and energy. The dollar only has value because it allows you to do more in these other capacities.

But the larger question to ask is, if money is only a proxy for other resources, why don’t we just transact with those directly? And I think we do. We choose where we invest our compassion, energy, and time because they are finite resources and need to be allocated appropriately. I’d even go further to say that these resources serve as currencies themselves because they allow value to be transferred in a more implicit way.

If we live our lives optimizing for money, and value ourselves based on the dollars coming in, then we’re making decisions that are one degree removed from what actually matters. Let's think more about how you can use the intrinsic resources you have.

Let’s think more about decision making, and one thing that informs the decisions you’re making that you might not be aware of - Your assumptions. Assumptions are things that you have concluded and believe to be true about a certain situation. You use assumptions when you might not have all the data you need and haven’t completely validated the concept. Assumptions help you move forward faster because it allows you to forecast how you expect things will go without committing too many resources to double checking your hunches. 

As humans we’re actually very good at making assumptions. This is because we have so much experience in similar areas and we rely on assumptions for efficiency, especially when it comes to introducing change or innovation Sometimes though, when we’re in new territory we rely on these assumptions so heavily that we actually move past really fundamental questions without giving them enough consideration. That’s why today, I’m asking you to question your assumptions. Identify what are the core factors of your understanding and think through how much you actually know about them. 

To give an example, let’s say that you’re thinking about starting a new job. You’re ready to take the risk. The assumptions built into that are: You’re quality of life will increase and it doesn’t negatively affect others. Well what does that mean? Quality of life is a complex arrangement of compensation, enjoying the work, how many hours you’re working. As for negatively affecting others, will you need to relocate, will you be more “on call” and less present? These are all factors that all contribute to the larger conclusion.

The bottom line is, you’re probably on the right track and your assumptions are good, but take an extra minute to question how you may be thinking a certain way without diving into the details that make up that thought.