Tell me this hasn’t been you... You want something really bad, like a promotion or launching a new project or an opportunity to meet somebody you’ve always wanted to meet. It’s on the schedule, you prepare really hard for it, and all of a sudden for some reason it falls through. Either the event cancels or you don’t get the promotion or the introduction is delayed. It’s pretty disappointing, especially after having put in so much effort to make it happen, but that’s not the end of the story.

Life will go on and the opportunity will return, will you be prepared to make the most of it when it does?

With that in mind, I want to highlight this perspective shift between setbacks and setups. You can choose to see things as holding you back, making it more difficult for you to get what you want, or you can see it as a new opportunity to differentiate yourself even further and make the absolute most of the opportunity. The same circumstance can be spun in two different ways.

The setback mentality is more of a victim mentality. It’s the “Why me?” response where you feel like things are unfair and conspiring against you. The set up mentality is an ambitious, opportunistic approach that places you in control of your destiny, and it's more of a hero mentality.

Before you can be anyone else’s hero you need to be your own, and it starts with the way you view the circumstances in your life. Do you perceive a roadblock, obstacle, or challenge in your path? Great! That’s setting you up for something great, it’s not setting you back.

I want to highlight a misconception about intentionality that might be helpful to you. Intentionality is thought of as being very deliberate. You know exactly what you’re doing and why you're doing it. It’s something that you commit to doing without losing focus or getting distracted. That is why the term “deliberate strategy” is used to direct people around a common goal.

But I feel like that’s short-sighted. One fundamental thing a deliberate strategy is missing is context. You can be so focused and head down on a certain strategy that you miss the opportunities around you. You become blind to the way things are dynamically changing and are too occupied to consider that the original strategy might not actually the best fit. For that reason, it’s important to leave room to be flexible, which is why it’s often more appropriate to commit to an “emerging strategy” approach. 

With approach you're still intentional, but you’re intentional about the goal you’re looking to achieve and pursuing the path of least resistance to getting there. You can learn something new about the environment you’re working within that changes what you think is the best way to proceed. This is a very entrepreneurial approach, heavily relying on feedback to guide your next steps.

This should be refreshing though because no longer do you need to stay disciplined to a rigid strategy, but rather you stay disciplined to being observant of the dynamic context around you. I encourage you to embrace more of an emergent strategy so that you make progress in the best way possible, not just the way you thought was best in one singular context.

You’ve heard it before but I’ll say it again - Everyone makes mistakes. We’re all human and we aren’t perfect. Occasionally we make a silly error, or read a situation wrong, or get forgetful about something. What’s important to think about is the perspective around those mistakes.

Maybe this is top of mind for me today because I made too bigger mistakes lately. In the last interview I recorded I had the microphone turned around backwards, so the audio quality was worse than usual. Whoops. And then with a live presentation I was giving on Zoom, I didn’t know until the end that my slides weren’t changing. My bad. 

The unfortunate part to making mistakes is that there are real consequences to the action. It feels bad because you either let someone down, you feel vulnerable, or it hurts your confidence. However, people are usually pretty tolerant, because everyone makes mistakes, and if you acknowledge the error you can quickly make things better.

An important piece to this too - If you’re in a position to make a mistake then you’re trying! You’re putting yourself out there in a situation that you aren’t 100% confident in, and you’re giving yourself the opportunity to grow. With the lessons in your mistakes you become more self-aware, start seeing some of your blindspots and hone in on what are your strengths. Just like you can perceive rejection as one step closer to a “yes”, you can view a mistake as one lesson closer to understanding.

Don’t be afraid to make mistakes, mistakes are good - When you let them serve their purpose.

Let's dive into a subtle line in an iconic song, “It’s a small world”. The line goes “smile means friendship to everyone.” Fundamentally, wouldn’t the world better if everyone was our friend and we had no enemies? Well it’s not as far away as you’d think, The simple gesture of extending a smile to someone communicates a lot. In such a simple way, it expresses that you see them and respect the journey that has brought them to this very moment. It’s inviting and demonstrates not only that you’re not a threat to them, but your intention is to support them, and that you want the best for them. These are all things that your best friends would be thinking, and all of it is conveyed in a smile.

As you’ve probably heard before, it requires far fewer muscles to smile than to frown. So… smiling helps others, it’s easy to do, and last it’s good for you! Smiling serves as a bottom up trigger that informs your brain on its current emotional state, and causes it to secrete positive neurotransmitters.

Smiling is a universally good thing, it’s a mannerism that transcends culture, and at an evolutionary level it signifies that you’re not a threat. If you're not a foe then you must be a friend, and I don’t think it’s too far of a stretch to say that “smile means friendship to everyone”.

Goals are effective in helping us package our dreams and desires into attainable elements. They are milestones and checkpoints that you can reach to understand that you’re making progress and on the right path. It’s helpful to set goals because then you have something tangible and objective to orient yourself toward, but what’s equally important is knowing what the goal represents, so that you’re doing something you genuinely find meaningful.

Let’s say a dream of yours is to hike Mount Kilimanjaro. Sounds like a tall task (literally) that requires a lot of preparation. You could set intermediate goals to help make sure you can achieve that dream. For example, what’s the progression in training required to accomplish such a feat? You can set goals to make sure you're physically prepared. What are the requirements when it comes to travel, accommodations, visas, and everything that’s needed from a logistics standpoint? You can set a goal to get all of that done with enough advanced planning. And the resources required to do it, do you know what equipment you need?

The dream itself is made up of smaller, incremental actions that are required to pursue the dream, and the best way to do that is to set goals that quantify your progress along the way. So dream big, absolutely that’s one of my core values actually, but also be practical and actionable in pursuit of those dreams.

You’d probably agree that in general, people are not very patient. Between the quick fixes, fast hacks, one day delivery and access to the internet at our fingertips, we don’t really need to wait around for things anymore. But what if I told you that impatience is actually an unnatural state? Just like other animals, humans evolved to be patient in order to secure resources that either exist in scarce quantities or require a long time to obtain.

So what’s happened here? It’s not that our nature has changed in any significant way. It’s that our expectations have changed, and those expectations are being inappropriately applied to areas where they shouldn’t have influence.  This expectation was created by the very technologies I mentioned earlier, as well as the marketing we are exposed to that guarantees results immediately. But technology is a man-made intervention, it is unnatural, and therefore doesn’t work well when dealing with natural processes.

To provide a personal example - I started using the affirmation “I am worthy” every morning as part of my morning routine. I’d expected to feel instant results, because that’s just how things work these days… but after a week, or two, or three, I didn’t feel any differently. I even felt like I was faking it, but I chose to stay consistent. Then after 3 months of reciting the same affirmation everyday, a switch flipped and basically overnight I started feeling authentically worthy.

I say this to demonstrate that when it comes to the natural process of personal development, things take time. It goes against the precedent technology sets for you. But with consistency, and a faith in the process, you can succeed. And showing up for yourself day in day out will bear fruits three months from now that you couldn’t even imagine.

March 8th, 2021 is International Women’s Day. It’s a day dedicated to celebrating the social, economic, and political achievements of women. If I’m being honest, I didn’t realize there was a difference between how men and women were being treated in the world and in the workplace until I went to college. I think that’s a testament to the incredibly strong women I have in my family - my mom, grandma, and sister in-law, but it’s also something I’ve tried to be more aware of so that I can be part of a more equitable future.

So let’s speak some truth today! Women are incredible. The strength, resolve, and selflessness of women throughout the world inspires me to be a better person. If you identify as a woman, then take today to own it! Get involved and amplify this message so that girls who come after you are brought up in a world with better treatment and equal opportunities.

If you don’t identify as a woman, then get introspective. Think about the potential biases you’ve held, the ways you’ve taken action in a sexist or non-inclusive way, and commit to being better. Send a note to a woman in your life that you love and respect acknowledging her for her gifts and contributions. That’s not to say you’ve been treating women poorly your whole life, but explore that room for improvement so you can best advocate for women and their future. 

No matter who you are or where you come from, I encourage you to take this simple action today. Learn more about She’s The First. This organization ensures that women and girls in more oppressive areas are given opportunities to thrive!

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As it relates to the work you do, you need to spend time applying certain skills. In relationships you can only make time for so many people. In service, there is only so much you can do to counteract the inequities you see in the world.

That's where Tammy Tibbetts, founder of the international women’s rights and advocacy non-profit She’s the First, comes in. Tammy has made a huge difference in her life and career but only when she narrowed her focus and began applying her resources in a specific way.

If you don’t concentrate your resources on a few things then it’s very possible they will be diluted among many things, and not really move the needle. As Tammy said, just because you pick something small doesn't mean you’re neglecting everything else… it’s important that you feel aligned with where your resources are going so that you can play your role in the change you wish to see, and have faith that others will serve alongside you to fill in the other gaps you see.