Manage the Molehill

Sage advice from a marketing consultant popped up on my Twitter feed.

“Stop doing dumb shit.”

Nice tone!

OK, maybe he meant he had finally learned to stop making bad decisions.

On the other hand, we all have to with dumb stuff from time to time. That’s just part of life.

We’ve gone back to basics in the August series, Traveling Light. Everyone comes up against external barriers. However, whether you muscle through those barriers or find a way to take it easy is up to you.

That means managing the molehill so it never becomes a mountain that’s the boss of you. Keeping a 5 minute thing just 5 minutes before you move on. That’s mindfulness.

At work, you make a first cut, and you make it stick. You send what isn’t yours in another direction, but it’s the right direction. That’s more than creating an efficient process – it’s leadership.

You don’t just forward mail. You take 2 minutes to tee up the issue. That’s a kind and considerate hand-off to the person affected.

Then you dive into what’s left on your plate with your whole heart. That’s working with commitment.

So what do we need to stop doing? Complaining so much that people work around us. Cherry picking what we like to do and what we don’t. Then using passive aggressive tactics to push what we want to avoid onto others.

Those choices put, and keep us in, struggle. And there’s a big difference between thoughtful delegation and mindless dumping.

In August, we’ve met people who reaped the rewards of knowing what is essential.

1. In “No Master Plan”, we saw how Barbara Corcoran built a real estate empire. Being persistent – taking it 50 feet at a time – was vital to building her business.
2. Fumio Susaki said good-bye to a stack of things he was desperately trying to manage in “Your House of Success”. Cutting back on his stuff had a funny silver lining; his relationships improved at the same time. When he gained clarity, he understood what possessions to keep and what habits and expectations to let go.
3. Ken Burns showed how to find and share your passion with enthusiasm in “Forever Curious”. He fills his days with passion about his subjects. That means he’s too busy creating emotional, engaging films to spend time tweeting every 10 minutes.
4. In Out of My Lane, we met a man who had a grand vision of being a best-selling author, even though he hated to write. His life opened up when he skipped past spending hours alone in a room trying to grind out a bestseller. His critical learning was that ease happens when you work within your gifting.

Roadblocks happen for everyone, but when we have constant tension, we’re out of alignment. That’s the time to step back and ask, “What is really essential here?”

It’s the last week of the Summer – the perfect moment to take time off, put up your feet and be at ease. Make your life so easy, so automatic, that you cut through small stuff quickly. From here on out, travel light.