​If you got promoted, what do you think your colleagues would think? Do you think they would be happy for you or pissed off.  Do you think that would motivate them, seeing one of their own moving up, or make them want to leave, ‘why has that guy got promoted over me?’
 
What type of tactics do you want to employ? Who do you want to be? What culture do you want in your organisation?
 
The answer to these is it does not really matter as long as you are happy with yourself.  If you want to win at all costs, then probably no one will remember how you got there after a while and you will still have the title to show for it.  You will be able to post-rationalise that that’s what it takes to be the greatest, or some other rhetoric.  But you will remember.  And so will the people around you at the time.  Plus, just because you got what you think you wanted does not mean you will be happy with the result or the journey on the way there.
 
But there is another route.  A route of really caring for others.  A route of lifting other up along with you.  A route of widening the “old boys club” to be more inclusive.  A route of self-awareness rather than simply cutting out those who disagree with you.
 
Both work.  One might take longer than the other.  But which are you going to enjoy more in the long run?

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​Cost leadership is broken.
 
“It's cheap, fuck face, what are you moaning at me for?”
 
Caring is the only thing a human can do that a robot can't (currently). If your business model is to get in stock, move them fast, sell them cheap then the customer becomes a commodity as well as the product.
 
Don't want to buy right now? Move on, go somewhere else. “You just lost me a sale” is the mindset of the sales person. There is someone else ready to buy and you are not. 
 
This works… Until the commodity dries up. Until the economy tanks.  Until a competitor has slightly higher (or the same) prices and cares just an ounce more.  Until someone else makes it a slightly more pleasant experience for the customer than you. 
 
Then the only thing differentiating you from everyone else dropping their prices is how much you care. If you want to be a cost leader then the extreme is to employ no people. Outsource. Use self-service for everything. But the barrier to entry for this is low and who is going to buy your products if no-one has a job in your country?
 
Caring is the differentiator.  Care more.  Care for more people.  Care more often.

​The extent of my “multitasking” abilities:
 
Thinking of blog posts or app feature ideas or framing questions in the shower
Listening to podcasts while driving
Doing social media on the toilet
 
For everything else.  Be present.

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​You have the same amount of time as Richard Branson
You have the same amount of time as Oprah
You have the same amount of time as Steve Jobs
 
You have the same amount of time as anyone you have ever heard of. If you are reading this, then chances are they are no smarter than you.
 
So, what is the difference between you and them?
 
Now get started.

​Any "profession" is rule-based and exam based.  Therefore, can be better done by a computer or someone with the same rules that will work for less money than you.
 
Since the industrial revolution, jobs have gone to machinery, robotics and assembly lines of the cheapest paid worker.  Why would it not?  There is literally no value in the alternative.
 
The good advice then was to get a profession and education was the way out and the way up.  Now the same thing is happening to office workers.  Automation, machine learning, the internet.  All much cheaper, more efficient and more effective than humans.  But only humans who phone it in, who do the bare minimum, that despise interaction.
 
Choose a job that is eminently human. Connection, caring, innovation. Those are the jobs for life now, not accountants or traders or production line operators. 
 
The world is changing.  And you can either be on the right or wrong side of it.  Whilst others are drinking in the middle of the day bemoaning the government, you could be starting a business, learning to sell, building a network. 
 
Remember there is money to be made when the market drops.  Circumstance does not matter if you win either way.

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​PowerPoint decks are only useful for the unprepared to communicate with the disinterested.
 
Anyone who knows what they're talking about does not need an aid.  And anyone interested in listening needs the speaker to come alive, not the slides.

There is never a good time.

Cancer
Death 
Intensive Care
Stress
Redundancy

Unless you are working 168 hours, you have time.

Cut the excuses.

Look after your family for the short and the long term.  Follow your dreams and engage in current reality.

Do both. Do what matters.  Do it anyway.

There is no excuse not to have a date for your work.  You can go back three iterations (only three without being absurd) but a date can and should be stated.  If you are providing work to someone else or vice versa, in my mind here are the only acceptable responses when asked when the work can be expected to be delivered:
 
1. Preferred:  Date when you will get the deliverable to the person who needs it

2. Good:  A date when you will get back to the person to tell them when the deliverable will be delivered
​
3. Worst (but still better than nothing):  A date when you will get back to the person with the date when you can tell them when the deliverable will be delivered.
 
An example of the worst one:  I need to check in with Dorothy on how long the task will take, so I will get back to you by Monday with the expected date of the report you need.
 
I cannot see why anyone would not be able to at least provide the worst date, and yet this is accepted a lot in corporations.  Dragging “deadlines”, effort and money along with it.

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​Make art and ship.  There are enough followers.  Do something interesting.
 
A whole book of motivation to be better.  Why would anyone not read it?

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​Don’t think.  Trust yourself.
 
Just like a rap battle, a corporate Q&A or simply talking to a stranger.  Trust yourself that you will be able to speak the words you need to speak.  In hindsight, you will not know where they came from, seemingly bypassing rational thought.
 
If you let yourself see “failure” as okay, then that takes the resistance (as Seth would say) away and you let yourself perform the best you can.
 
Even better than seeing it as okay, redefine failure so you cannot possibly fail.
 
Feeling sorry for yourself because you got rejected by that girl at the bar?  Well, that wasn’t the goal.  The goal was to approach one person that day, and that’s what you did, so you succeeded.
 
Forgot all your lines and made a bad impression at a work presentation?  Well, that wasn’t the goal.  The goal was to stand up and speak when no one else volunteered, so you succeeded.
 
Go easier on yourself.  See what happens when you gain momentum from small wins.