Monday Memo #7

Do something different.

The Monday memo is food for thought to fuel your week.

Hi everybody,

A possibility is a choice you can make, an action you can take. 

Choices you have made in the past, things you have done, remain in the past. They can’t be changed. You can only make choice or take actions in the present, in the here and now.

And possibilities lead to more possibilities. Every choice you make opens up new choices. Every action creates more possible actions. So the choices you make today will determine what is possible for you in the future.

It’s in your best interest to maximize the number of possibilities available to you in any given moment, because the more choices you have, the more agency you have. So how do you do that?

To see possibilities, you must pay attention to the present moment. A possibility that you don’t see or notice is not available to you. So anything that reduces your attention to the present will shut out or close off possibilities. 

This includes ruminating about the past, worrying about the future, clicking around on your phone, and anything you do by habit, routine, or autopilot. Autopilot is especially problematic because we default into autopilot all the time. In fact we rely on it to accomplish routine tasks, things that we do all the time.

Consider for example your commute to work. It’s probably gotten so you don’t even notice it. You start the routine and then you run it without thinking, while your mind wanders to other things. And yet, you could choose to do something different. Every day, there are hundreds if not thousands of possibilities available. You could take a new route. 

You could stop for donuts! And once you stop for donuts all kinds of other choices become available that weren’t there before. You could leave them in the lobby. You could walk around and share them strategically. You could bring them to finance, or maintenance. You could feed them to birds. All of those become possible once you get donuts, and none of them were possible before.

The trick here is that life is full of routines, and they take you away from the moment. Doing anything different, anything different, will bring your attention back into the moment. You don’t even need to have a plan. You just have to step away from your unthinking routine.

This week’s exercise.

So here’s your exercise for the week: Turn off your autopilot. Do something different. You don’t need to have a plan. Just step off the path. See what happens. 

And if you have time, report your findings. I’d love to hear what happens.

Updates.

Our next Collaboratory is a week from Wednesday, February 7th, from 9-10:30 AM Pacific (Noon-1:30 PM Eastern, 5-6:30 PM GMT). Our topic will be creating customer conversations. Collaboratories are free for members. Members, your joining instructions are “below the fold.”

Last week we had 37 members. This week we have 41. The first 100 members will lock in the $20/month rate forever. Will you be number 42?

Become a member by upgrading your subscription, or you can buy a one-time ticket for the February 7th Collaboratory here.

If you’re already a member, thank you. You’re making this possible.