We notice the little things

Creating momentum and achieving our dreams in our life is all about the little steps, doing things regularly that are easy to start and do, creating a sustainable habit, that over time adds up to the big thing.

It’s also funny that most of what really matters to me, you, our partners, our friends, our customers, our voters, our supporters, and so on are the little things we do and, so important to remember, the little things we don’t do.

The moment we say ‘I love you’, ‘thanks’, ‘well done’.

The time that we let the other person go first. The moment we give someone a hug.

The time we give to others, whether to listen empathetically to someone or to do something that the other person can’t, to teach someone.

Whatever it is we will notice and often be hurt more by the small things that we miss for each other than bigger things we do.

Our customers will appreciate the little things we do or don’t. When the waiter comes by the table and genuinely checks that you’ve got everything and you’re enjoying your meal. When you take your car to the garage for works, they clean it after. When you go that extra step and do something small and unexpected, a genuine moment of kindness that has nothing attached to it.

Whatever you can do that is a small something for someone else, do it, do it genuinely, and do it every day. It will bring joy to you and others. Do it with no expectation of reciprocation.

That’s all and that’s all we need.

Break the rules

I don’t mean driving full speed through red lights.

I mean that we live by self-imposed rules that we put on ourselves or live by the rules that others impose on us.

We have rules imposed on us for some many things from gender rules, to what clothes we wear, to how we have to speak, to what we eat, how many of certain things we can consume and so on. We have so many rules that we are not consciously aware of most of them. Yet we live by them every single day.

Most of these rules are unwritten, passed on from generation to generation.

And many rules are only the ones that we choose to impose on ourselves in our own heads.

We blame society and others for the rules, yet we comply with them.

Each one of us is society, each person counts.

We need to be the leader we want to see, we need to be the change we want to see.

No good waiting for ‘them’.

Real fundamental change to the unwritten rules only comes when we are prepared to break them.

The human race evolved from rule breakers, not from the people who complied.

Challenge first the ones in our heads.

That will free us to be ready to break the rules of others.