Welcome to “The Looking Glass”, a weekly newsletter journey of personal growth into mindset, meaning and mastery in work.
#33 – 09 Dec 2022
Hello friend,
Thanks again for being here!
This week I am trying something different and spawning the newsletter from a single source of inspiration:
What To Do When It’s Your Turn (and it’s always your turn) by Seth Godin.
This book is an excellent companion on the road to creative greatness. It will push you to face your fears, question your doubts, and start doing the work only you can do.
Here’s an insight, a question, and a quote I reflected on over the last week.
💡 The mood changer
I want you to imagine you are having the worst day.
Everything is going wrong.
You work up late.
You dropped your favourite coffee cup on the ground, and it shattered into a million pieces (before you had finished your morning brew).
You got cut off in traffic and nearly crashed your car.
I could go on, but you get the idea. We have all been there, and bad days happen.
But wait.
Then something different happened.
Something unexpected.
Something magical.
You received a random phone call from a long-lost friend.
They didn’t call because they wanted anything from you. They called because they wanted to check in on you and tell you how much they appreciate you.
Suddenly that lousy day doesn’t seem so bad.
When getting in bed that evening, you have a warm smile as you recall that lovely phone call. The comedy of bad luck is all but forgotten.
So what is the point of all this?
The insight here is realising that you can do to others what happened to you.
You can be the mood changer!
All you have to do is show up. Be a real person who cares about someone. Make the phone call, send the message, etc.
This is powerful.
You can be someone who is missed when they are not around.
I remember back in my office working days, we had a leader in the firm who was very hot and cold emotionally. When they were in a good mood, the whole office knew, and it was positive vibes all around. It was such a pleasure to be in that environment.
But then the opposite would happen. Something would go wrong, and that leader would flip in an instant. Suddenly everyone was their worst enemy. The world was out to get them. Now the office was like walking on eggshells. Keep your head down and tread carefully.
Sadly, this leader never realised the power of their influence. And no one was brave enough to step up and tell them this was the case. So this vicious cycle of ups and downs continued indefinitely.
So I challenge you today, this week, or this month, to recognise that you influence those around you with the moods you choose to inhabit.
You can let your emotions control you, or you can step up and be a leader that matters.
You can be the mood changer that changes things for the better.
❔ When was the last time you did something for the first time?
A few years ago, my life had become pretty dull.
I had a steady but boring corporate accounting job. And I was just going through the motions day in and day out. Rinse and repeat.
I had just returned to Australia after living in London for two years. Which was the adventure of a lifetime, so this new sense of monotony was starting to eat away at me.
Was this really what I was destined for now?
Just punching out the same monthly financial reporting cycle for the rest of my days?
I realised that I had stopped doing fun and interesting things.
I couldn’t remember the last time I did something for the first time.
I was craving something more creative and meaningful than my current existence.
I wasn’t in a position to up and quit my job.
A lot of my heroes were writers, podcasters and online creators.
“I would love to be a thought leader,” I thought.
But I felt a million miles away from being a thought leader.
And this is a point where the work of Seth Godin challenged me:
It’s your turn (and it’s always been your turn).
I had to stop waiting for someone to “pick me” and just get started on my dream. No one was ever going to tap me on the shoulder, pull me out of accounting and set me on the correct path. I had to do it myself.
And so will you!
Seth built up some courage in me to write my first blog post. I was so nervous setting up my blog and shooting that first message into the ether.
“What if no one reads it?”
“What if people laugh at me?”
“Who am I to do this?”
My mind was filled with fears and self-doubts.
Then I recalled another line from Seth:
This might not work.
And that’s ok.
None of this is guaranteed to be easy, fun, or successful.
But that shouldn’t stop you from doing work that matters.
The cost of being wrong is less than the cost of doing nothing.
Seth Godin
Failure is all part of the journey. It is often essential before winning, and that is where the real learning happens that sets us up for later success.
So if we fail to start, we fail to have any chance of winning.
But it is about so much more than “winning”.
It’s about the person we want to become and those we wish to impact.
We fail to notice because we are keeping busy.
We fail to dream because dreaming implies that we have to take a risk to realise our dream.
We fail to connect because we might get rejected.
And we fail to do because we haven’t noticed, we haven’t dreamed, and we haven’t connected.
Seth Godin
You need to stop hiding and get in the game.
You know that work you are avoiding.
Maybe you’re waiting for the “right time”.
Well, the “right time” doesn’t exist.
One day you will realise that today was the “right time”.
Now is the right time to do that thing for the first time.
Because then you can do it the second, third time and so on.
And before you know it, you’ll have built up a series of wins and failures.
You will no longer recognise yourself.
What is the thing you have been avoiding that you need to do for the first time?
💬 A quote to ponder
– On doing the work that means you’ll be missed when you’re gone
Your turn to:
Ship.
Speak up.
Stand out.
Build a following.
Market a product.
Make a connection.
Solve an interesting problem.
Write, sing, invent, create, ask a question, launch a project, organise a protest, open the door for someone, question authority, make a short film, direct, produce, create, or adopt.
Learn a new skill.
Help someone who needs you.Be missed if you’re gone.
Your turn to make a ruckus.
Seth Godin
📣 What happened this week
Long-form content
I’ve been continuing my exploration of building online.
I am convinced that long-form content is the way to go, and the best format is a long-form newsletter exploring your interests. Or, if you don’t like writing, you could do a podcast or YouTube. But writing is a solid basis for anything.
This is best done with long form.
In short, you:
- Pursue what interests you
- Study the big-picture ideas of those interests
- Note patterns based on your experience
- Connect the dots with long-form content
- Create your own versions of concepts, processes, and philosophies
- Take pieces of that long form for your short-form content
This is where business becomes extremely fulfilling.
Dan Koe
There is a lot of talk about AI taking over even creative work. You might have seen all the mindblowing AI art on Instagram this week.
This is why in-depth, long-form content is more important than ever. Short-form ideas are a dime a dozen, and people will use the latest AI content generator tool to punch these out.
However, only you have your unique insight and experiences. You can make connections between seemingly unrelated fields and chart new territory. That can’t easily be replicated as it is all part of you exploring your potential.
People will connect to this depth and feel you and your humanity. And that is more important now than ever.
While heading into an uncertain future, people want someone they can count on and trust.
💭
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It would be great to have you on board!
Cheers!
