Ep. 85: Two-Minute Tip — What's Really True?

05/28/20 • 2 min

How much money do you actually have in your bank account? How do you and the people in your family really feel right now? Really. What's really going on in your professional environment? In your personal environment?

Not generalizing or exaggerating. Most people have a tendency, me too, to generalize. Everybody's leaving. It's so awful. Everybody's leaving the company, what do you mean? Everybody's leaving. It's so awful. Everybody's leaving the company? What do you mean? Well, Sally said she thought she might want to get a new career. And over 35 years of my consulting and coaching practices, I've often seen, And over 35 years of my consulting and coaching practices, I've often seen, all I have to do is to start to address, what is the real current reality?

And there are lots of ways to do that, but I would highly recommend you examine whether you're running any exaggerations or generalizations. That may be creating more pressure than you need. What's really true? What do you know what's really true? What do you know is actually really true?

Not "What do you think is true?", or "What do people say is true?" But, what do you *know* it actually really true? It gives you a grounded base to actually make decisions from.

I could spin on that for a long time, but let me just say if that rings any of your bells at all, notice whether you're generalizing and exaggerating. And if so, stop it!

Just say what's really true right now? Because you need to know what's the current reality so that you can then move from a ground base of reality. Not from some expectation of that, or generalization of that, or exaggeration of that.

Not "What do you think is true?", or "What do people say is true?" But, what do you *know* it actually really true? It gives you a grounded base to actually make decisions from.

I could spin on that for a long time, but let me just say if that rings any of your bells at all, notice whether you're generalizing and exaggerating. And if so, stop it!

Previous Episode

Ep. 84: Two-Minute Tip — Clean Up, Close Up

I'll steal a play from Marie Kondo's work that she's been doing, by getting people to clean up closets and clean up their environment. And only keep the things you love and that turn you on.

Mine's a little more universal. Look, there's a lot of things that don't turn you on that you still need to keep. There's a lot of things that you need to kind of look at and say, yeah I'm not sure whether I want to throw that away or not. That's fine. But it's not a bad idea, especially in times like these, if you have any kind of extra time at all, to, as I say, bring up the rear guard.

I've mentioned this in several of my other two-minute tips, but this is sort of the universal clean up. Clean up your computer. Clean up your closets. Clean up the boot or the trunk of your car. Your garage, your attic, any spaces that you have. Any rented spaces that you have, to hold old stuff.

The world is just so addicted to hanging onto a lot of stuff, as opposed to being clean and clear. So I highly recommend you look around. What books need to be given away? What clothes need to be given away? What shoes have you not worn for two years? Where can you give those things away that people might be able to use that?

So look around your environment and say, how functional is it? How useful is it? How current is it in terms of the reality of these things and their meaning to you? And that's fine. There's no right or wrong in terms of whatever that volume is. It may be whatever it is that you want, how ever much you feel comfortable. But most people feel slightly uncomfortable about what's still in their closet, what's still in the drawers of their desk, what's still anywhere. So now's a good time, when I say "When in doubt, clean a drawer", it'll help a ton.

Next Episode

Ep. 86: Two-Minute Tip — Upgrade

Upgrade, you know if you have any downtime at all, with that kind of backed off time that we have, in the pandemic. It's the situation we're dealing with right now.

This is a time to think, it's part of one of those backlog things, one of those things you may have had in the back of your mind. I need to upgrade my computer. I need to upgrade my operating system. I need to upgrade this piece of software. I need to upgrade any of my technology, and any of my tools.

If you're painting, do you have the right brushes? Do you need to upgrade those? If you're playing the flute, or the piano, do you need to upgrade any of the music that you have to be able to practice with?

So I know this is kind of an off-the-wall question. But, a good idea to sort of access, is there anything that you might want to bring up to current speed? That you enjoy, that you love, or you need to be involved with.

I love Kevin Kelly's book from a few years ago, talking about the inevitable, talking about the inevitable trends that are happening to all of us, no matter what. He basically made the point that, you're never going to get really any good at anything because there are going to be constant upgrades, especially in software. So, I used to think that I could just resist upgrades to my Quicken because I thought I could manage it, but now I can't afford to do that because, who knows, to be able to manage Quicken and my accounting stuff personally I need to have the current version.

So it's kind of like, trust that you're never going to get truly on board with everything, currently and totally, but some of those things might need to be upgraded, and that could be just a process. You kind of get the zen of that. OK, let me just keep upgrading, getting better at, getting more stuff that might work. So, just in case that triggers any kind of a thought. Any kind of a thing you might want to add to your list. Hopefully that's helpful.