Friends of Dave #269: long and winding receipts
What, Me Worry?
I think I had a major breakthrough this week, Friends. It could save the world and I am sharing it with you here first.
As you may have noticed first hand or read, anxiety is on the rise in society. Of course, COVID has not helped, but it was a brewing sh*tstorm before COVID -- particularly amongst younger people.
What I'm talking about is a sense of fear, panic and paralysis that quickly devolves into bad feelings for people, particularly when situations are stressful or ambiguous. I don't know what was in the air this week, but I witnessed this firsthand on at least a handful of different, unrelated occasions.
The common thread: people were worrying about things that were out of their control.
It has likely happened to all of us at one time or another. Some of us are just worriers. Some of us are perfectionists. Some of us do not like being surprised or underprepared. Sometimes we are just overwhelmed. Think about times when maybe this has affected you.
When it happens, we end up devoting a significant amount of time, energy and emotion to things that might exist at some point, but do not actually exist in the present tense. When we do not know what to do in these situations, the feelings we have (i.e. helplessness, failure, shame) gets us thinking. The thinking turns into worrying. The worrying leads to us distorting facts and conjuring unlikely scenarios. And that is where the spiral begins.
I have a simple remedy: focus only on the things within our control right now.
That's it. That's the breakthrough.
How lucky are you to have read that here for the first time, right Friends?
Jokes aside, I think we tend to overcomplicate things when things get hectic. Why not just keep it simple?
See when you break it down, there are an unlimited amount of factors we cannot control on a daily basis. We cannot control the weather. We cannot control if we get sick or not. We cannot control what others may do or say to us. We cannot control what a competitor may do to impact our business. These are all facts.
Knowing this, in any given moment we do have the ability to influence:
What we think
What we feel
What actions we take
It's hard enough to manage those in non-stressful situations let alone when the pressure gets turned up, so it seems like a good idea to just take a deep breath and start with them.
By the way, there is a linear path that can be traced from our thoughts to our feelings to the actions we choose to take as a result. If we can reign in our thoughts in moments of stress and identify the feelings we are having as a result (i.e. thought: "My customer is going through organizational changes and is going to cancel our service" and the feeling: "If they cancel, that means I failed."), we can begin redirect ourselves.
In this case, I have no tangible evidence right now that any of this is true. It's a scenario I have created in my head. We can take more logical, appropriate action -- instead of focusing on the possibilities of them maybe cancelling and my fear of being a failure, I can go call the customer and find out the facts and details. Perhaps during that call I learn otherwise or learn more details that strengthen my relationship with the customer.
So if we have a choice, doesn't it seem logical to devote our energy to these three areas and not the infinite number of possibilities of what might occur which can only lead us to getting more anxious?
If this makes sense to you, spread the word, Friends. The world can use less anxious people in it. If this can help one person worry less about the millions of things outside of their control and convince them to focus on just three things they can control, then I think we can begin to put a dent in this problem.
And with that......on to one last item of business, the Super Bowl.
My prediction: Bengals 38 - Rams 35. The Rams have the talent on both sides of the ball and should win it, but there is something about Joe Burrow and the youth and idealism of the Bengals team that makes me think they will have the audacity to come from behind and win. Their rookie kicker seals the deal in the last two minutes.
Enjoy the weekend and the game. Check out a few of the links below too!
XOXO
Dave
Think on This...
Everything Must Be Paid for Twice
One financial lesson they should teach in school is that most of the things we buy have to be paid for twice. There’s the first price, usually paid in dollars. The second is the effort and initiative required to gain its benefits, and it can be much higher than the first price.
For Your Day Job...
The Time Hack Everyone Should Know Much like Dorothy discovers at the end of “The Wizard of Oz,” the key to hacking time is a tool we’ve had all along: Choice.
Execs, Stop Competing With Children — www.linkedin.com
Taking a game of Candyland seriously is a fool’s errand.
Great, quick read that highlights the challenges and absurdity of established executives trying to awkwardly compete with changing trends and new technical jargon. Pivot the conversation back to where your strengths lie. If you like the style of the FoD newsletter, you will like this article.
The value of getting personalization right--or wrong--is multiplying
Companies who excel at demonstrating customer intimacy generate faster rates of revenue growth than their peers. And the closer organizations get to the consumer, the bigger the gains.
Your Weekly Dose of Randomness...
Visualizing Countries Grouped by Their Largest Trading Partner (1960-2020) — www.visualcapitalist.com International trade has evolved drastically over the years. While China dominates now, the landscape was much different a few decades ago.
So you can buy yourself a receipt scarf, of course.....
Is This the End of the Cannonball Run? For a century, a “fraternity of lunatics”—inspired by a driving pioneer and a 1980s movie—has raced across the United States. Is the newest record unbreakable?
Michigan finalizing plan to build first-ever wireless charging road for electric cars A 1-mile stretch of road will be built somewhere in Detroit that will be able to charge electric vehicles without stopping.
And The Last Word....
The Psychology of Your Scrolling Addiction — hbr.org
We’re more likely to get sucked in if we view many photos or videos in a row, if we consume multiple pieces of similar content, and if we are uninterrupted while consuming that content.
A series of studies identified three factors that lead people down the media consumption rabbit hole.
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