Nothing is worse than getting sick.

Sadly, that's what happened to me last weekend. Thankfully, I'm feeling much better now and didn't lose much because of my head cold.

I kept my routines and a healthy mindset while also moving forward personally and professionally.

What about you? How was your week?

Your default needs to be yes, until your reach a point where you need to switch to no.

So many people preach the power of saying no to things. I agree with them. But I also realize the immense power of saying yes to every opportunity early on. By defaulting to yes–early in our career–we put ourselves in places of serendipity that will help us get further quicker. But you do need to switch to saying no more than yes at some point.

When you switch from yes to no is still unknown to me; I'm still in the default yes mode.

A serious question: Is there a point where you need to put the marketing books away?

I was chatting with a wonderful gentleman who is a VP of Demand Generation on my podcast, and he made the bold claim that he reads zero marketing books. He mentioned how earlier in his career, he read them and now focuses on reading "other" books. As crazy as it is, I agreed with him.

I believe once you've read the marketing, copywriting, and psychology classics, you're set. Everything more is for pleasure.

When life is going well, it's easy to make the right decision that will position us well for the future.

But when life takes a turn down hardship lane, it's much more challenging to make the right decisions (e.g., working out or eating healthy). Picking the choice with the least friction (I.e., skipping the gym) is what's most manageable when we are going through tough times. That's why habits are vital.

Habits are what carry you through tough times by being automatic. I don't need to choose; every morning, I run. Habits are what get us through (or at least me).

While this lesson isn't related to race, I couldn't help but think of that saying because I don't believe it's true. We all see color (unless you're color blind). But hopefully, we don't let that color change our actions.

Sadly, many of us are not aware of the full extent to which we allow externals to dictate our opinions or feelings toward someone.

How you dress, how you talk, and how you carry yourself all speak. They are subtle, but they send signals to those you interact with. I'm not suggesting you need to look "professional." All I'm saying is you should be aware of this dynamic and act intelligently from it.

(A prerequisite question to answer is "What is my ideal morning and night routine?")

Now it's your turn to share:

Have a relaxing weekend!

🧠 + ❤️ // JO