Kick Monday’s Ass: don’t “should” on yourself (January 25, 2021)

It’s time to kick Monday’s ass…

Storytime: journey with me back to elementary school, where Angie was already a voracious reader.

Around that time the schools came up with an initiative, the Accelerated Reader program, to inspire kids to read more. Among the incentives? Your name written on a star and hung on the “wall of readers” in the library.

And also, points for every book read. Points you could use to score sweet prizes like a personal pizza from Pizza Hut (every kid’s dream), and other little trinkets like Slinkys and fancy pencils.

You got those points by reading a book, and taking a computer-based multiple choice test on it.

Unfortunately for the program creators, there were kids like me.

I figured out how to game the system pretty early on. Every year at the start of the school year, I’d spend the first few weeks taking the multiple choice tests on all the books I read the previous year. That way I could get my points and see that shining construction paper star up on the wall.

Then as I read more books, I’d add even more points and spend my sweet, sweet points on all kinds of awesome prizes. I probably ate my weight in personal pan pizzas, and there might have even been a colorful Lisa Frank folder in there somewhere.

The point of the story isn’t to brag about being smart. I don’t think I was really that smart… I was just lazy. I didn’t want to start from scratch every year… I wanted to build on the work I’d already done, and luckily for me I loved the stories and retained them well enough to pass the test.

The point is – yeah, young Angie was a lazy little scammer. But there’s another way to look at this: she worked smarter, not harder.

A lot of the time when building a business, we get caught up in ideas of how hard it’s “supposed” to be. And if it feels easy or simple, we throw in a bunch of additional stuff to make it feel like enough “work” to justify asking people for money.

If it’s easy for you and it provides value to others – why do you need to go through the motions of doing extra work, just because it feels like you “should”?

Don’t should on yourself, my friend. Being in business may not be easy, but it doesn’t have to be HARD.

And now for this week’s video…

Kick Monday’s Ass: teaming up with the competition

 

We hear a lot about competition as entrepreneurs – and often we’re encouraged to “crush” the competition or otherwise be at odds with them. Makes sense on the surface, since at first glance it appears that money that goes to them is money not coming to you.

But here’s the thing – my business grew exponentially when I “partnered up” with the competition vs trying to constantly outmaneuver them. (I like to think of this as working smarter, not harder.) It’s all in this week’s video…

Badass of the Week

Say what you will about TikTok… this one has me impressed with the platform. When TikToker (is that a word?) Jimmy Choi, who has Parkinson’s, shared a video of his struggle to get a tiny pill out of a bottle… the internet went to work.

Within days, there was an initial design. Then a prototype. Then the crowd working together to fix design issues. Now they’re raising money to fund future runs of the bottles to keep them affordable for the people that need them most.

Sometimes social media gets a bad rap. If it leads to more stories like this, I’m all for it. <3

(If you know someone who should be featured as my Badass of the Week, leave a comment and tell me!)

On Repeat This Week…

 

This one’s called None of Us Are Free by Solomon Burke.

I first heard this one at the end of an episode of House and the tight dissonant harmonies and head-nodding groove immediately captured my attention.

And this feels especially relevant given my trip to the Oak Alley plantation yesterday. My ancestors did not OWN that plantation, but they were intermarried with the family that did. And sadly, the real history of the place, and the people who built it, was ignored until recent years. The exhibit on the enslaved people who built the place? It’s less than five years old.
_________________

And there are people still in darkness,
And they just can’t see the light.
If you don’t say it’s wrong then that says it right.
We got try to feel for each other, let our brother’s know that
We care.
Got to get the message, send it out loud and clear.
None of us are free.
None of us are free.
None of us are free, one of us are chained.
None of us are free.