Lessons from a Decade in Business
Last week, Zing Collaborative turned 10!
As a result, I'm sharing my top lessons from a decade in business (and another year of life, to honor last month's birthday).
THE 53 LESSONS
Here they are.
Surround yourself with high integrity people —friends, clients, partners, team members. Doing so solves a large percentage of life’s problems.
Just because everyone else is doing something doesn’t mean you have to do it too. (Hello, TikTok.)
Related: just because everyone else tells you that you have to do something too doesn’t mean you have to —especially if it goes against your values or bumps up against your integrity. Be willing to stand your ground in order to remain in integrity. It might be hard. You might lose friends or clients. You might need to pass on big dollar contracts. Do it anyway. We can’t put a price on integrity.
Stay true to yourself. Check in with your values and your inner integrity often. Use this sense of inner knowing as a compass.
Prioritize friendship.
Girlfriends are one of life’s greatest gifts.
Make time for the things that matter.
Do what works for you. This might be different than what works for others.
If something seems too good to be true, it probably is.
If something seems fishy from the start and your intuition is screaming at you to run, it probably is, and you probably should.
Be consistent with the things that matter. Release the things that don’t.
We can run at full speed for a while, but if we don’t take any breaks, eventually we crash.
Focus on the idea of recovery, not self-care. Athletes need rest and recovery time in order to show up at their best for races and games. We need rest and recovery time in order to show up at our best as leaders, and in our lives.
It is possible to make our visions real—even the ones that first seemed far away, or even impossible to figure out. Sometimes it takes a while. Sometimes the process between “having a vision” and “living out the vision” can be messy, chaotic, painful, and even full of grief. But if you have a vision, trust it —and take conscious action in service of it. With the combination of trust and action, it really can (and often will) happen.
Life goes in seasons. Some seasons are filled with ease and joy. Others are filled with sadness and hardship. Some seasons have it all. Few things are permanent.
Acknowledge what colors you like (and what colors you don’t). Use this knowledge when you purchase clothes, when designing spaces, and to determine what color of notebook to buy. It’s a small way to add more joy to everyday life and to make everyday decisions easier.
Make the effort —to stop and see a relative who lives 30 miles away from where we happen to be camping, to see our friend’s parents who live down the road, to take a meal to someone who just had surgery, to drop off some cookies to someone who is in a rough patch, to call a loved one, to send a text. There is very rarely a downside to doing so, and there is often a lot of upside.
Get to know your neighbors.
Be willing to make hard decisions in service of the things that matter.
Set high standards for yourself, and for the people in your life.
Even if the saying that “we’re the average of the five people we spend the most time with” is cliche, it is also usually true. Keep an exceptional, high-integrity inner circle.
Invest in a set of black kitchen towels for everyday use, that you don’t have to worry about getting oil or tomato sauce or turmeric on. Enjoy a tiny moment of instant stress reduction.
Related: buy an inexpensive bath mat that doesn’t have the sticky backing and that can be thrown into the wash with the rest of the towels. Enjoy another tiny moment of instant stress reduction.
Donate any clothing items that you force yourself to wear even though you hate them. Banish scratchy, itchy, irritating fabrics from the closet. Breathe a sigh of relief.
When possible, opt for phone meetings over zoom meetings. They reduce screen fatigue, allow people to move around more freely while talking, and often lead to a deeper, richer conversation, since people aren’t worrying about what they look like on camera. If you do need to be on zoom, use the “hide self view” function.
Meet up with friends for walks. Or Pickleball. Or bike rides. Combine friendship + outdoor activity for the ultimate mood boost.
Rather than assuming any sort of intent (even positive), hold neutral.
Avoid jumping into things too early. Gather the necessary data and information up front. The exception: when there is a resounding, intuitive, resonant, and inner YES. In this case, trust your intuition and avoid overthinking things.
Go outside everyday.
The weather really does make a difference.
Say hi. Connect. In a world where we’ve been encouraged to turn away over the last few years, do the opposite, and turn toward.
Simplify. We can invest in technology and systems and structures and support, but if we simplify our business and our life, oftentimes we need fewer of these things than we initially think.
Accept the truth of our natural preferences, versus what we think they should be. This doesn’t mean that we can’t grow and can’t evolve (of course we can), but it means that we should focus our growth and evolution on how we actually are rather than how we think we should be. This allows us to work with rather than against ourselves.
Be wary of dogmatic recommendations. There is almost always nuance. As such: feel free to apply any lessons from this list that feel right for you, and ditch the rest!
Have friends with diverse perspectives, points of view, political leanings. Avoid living in (or contributing to) an echo chamber. To my friends with differing views who tolerated me during periods of time when I was unknowingly in an echo chamber, I'm sorry, and thank you for putting up with me.
Consume less news. Have more conversations.
If you go to the beach and dig holes, fill them in and smooth them out before leaving the beach. Otherwise, sea turtles can fall in and break their necks when they are making their journey to the water (Yes, really —I learned this only recently. Horrifying, isn't it?)
Most people are much more a) similar and b) reasonable than some of our news outlets would lead us to believe. Get to know people, their values, and what leads them to think and feel the way they do.
Acceptance (of how things are, versus how we wish they would be) sometimes comes with grief.
Spend time with people who have a strong (versus fragile) core self, or who are taking the necessary steps to strengthen their core self and better themselves.
Focus on fewer, better things —in life, and in business.
Do an annual assessment of all projects. Assess each one based on impact, joy, time invested, and revenue (if running a business). Give each one a score. Notice patterns and trends, and adjust accordingly.
Continually look for instances of the Pareto Principle in life and business. Notice the 20% with 80% of the positive outcomes. Also notice where there might be instances of the Pareto Principle happening in the wrong direction (20% of projects causing 80% of stress). Consider where things need to shift.
Do an annual review and retrospective and some version of a weekly review of key priorities and focus areas. Neither needs to be fancy.
Take the long view. Avoid jumping on bandwagons or of-the-moment trends.
In the end, the truth will likely prevail.
Do an honest assessment of which marketing activities actually lead to revenue. Keep the ones that do, and release the ones that don’t.
Do the most important things earlier in the day.
In order to drink more water, use a bigger water bottle.
Use Marco Polo to stay in touch with girlfriends from afar.
Practice gratitude. Look for the bright spots.
Focus on the things that matter and let go of the things that don’t.
Create the most expansive life that you can imagine. “Expansive” looks different for everyone. Define what it looks like for you, and take steps toward creating it. It is likely not too late.
THE BEGINNING
By the way, Zing Collaborative started with a vision in 2010, which at the time felt far-off and unattainable. In 2013, the vision became a reality (on paper, at least). If you are interested in hearing more about the early days and the initial vision that came as a complete shock at the time, you may enjoy checking out a few of the podcast episodes from the Expansive Impact podcast tour.
Thank you for being here and for being part of this journey.
I appreciate you tremendously.
FAVORITE RESOURCES
Here are a few resources that are some all-time favorites from the last several years.
⇢ Books I Recommend Most – Some all-time favorites and repeat reads.
⇢ A Frequently Cited Post – On moving through the spectrum of loss and grief. I've heard from many folks that this post has helped as you navigate hard times.
⇢ On Two Humans Passing Through – Aka, waving to others while driving on country roads.
⇢ A Few Favorite Playlists
⇢ Random Favorite Things of the Last Few Years
Shows: Shrinking, Kim's Convenience, Ted Lasso, White Lotus, Bad Sisters, Workin' Moms
Etc: Many of them are linked from this post.
Regular conversations with besties on Marco Polo, Signal, and Text, and in-person meet-ups with loved ones.
Exploring places that feel expansive.
Feeling overwhelming gratitude for each of you who have purchased a copy of Expansive Impact in the last year. Hearing from you about the ways in which it has felt supportive, has clarified something for you, or the way that it helped you prep for an upcoming conversation. Thank you.
Questions to consider
What have been my biggest lessons of the past 10 years?
What has been my biggest learning of the past year?
What am I learning so far this year? How do I want to apply what I'm learning?
