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You and I are now connected, 直到永遠, till death do us part. 💍

What you are reading is a newsletter of 3 things that you can enjoy in 3 minutes.

And, this newsletter is a piece of us, at this moment of time.

Let's go.

1x SILLY THING:

What I love the most about Autumn? Fat Bear Week!

As winter looms, bears are fattening up and turning irresistibly adorable. When something is so cute, there ought to be a contest to allow us to indulge in such magical phenomenon of nature.

1x FACT:

How To Survive the Great Video Games Ban in China?

- Spend all lost gaming hours on DouYin (TikTok) and binge mindlessly
- Watch others livestream themselves ... playing video games
- Rent adult accounts (US$5 only) from ecommerce sites for addition hours to play video games.

1x LEADERSHIP THOUGHT:

Bosses and leaders, what do you want your team to be known for?

Fun loving? Cohesive? Buddha-nature 佛系?

I have one label you might want to consider:

"We can do difficult things."

Hear me out.

The Big Picture:

• To do great things, we need to believe we can do difficult things.
• And in order to make us genuinely believe we can do difficult things, we need to have a closet full of evidence of us doing difficult things.
• And in order to collect the Pokemons of hard-things-done, you, the boss, will have a lot you to flex, and that's the best (and hard) way to #bossbetter.

3 Simple Steps:

1️⃣ BEFORE THE PAIN: Go and seek the hard things in your company and drag your teams into it.
You see, you are the only person in your team that hangs out in the stratosphere of senior management, where you will have a perspective of what's important in the bigger picture. You must ultilize this unique vantage point, find the meaningful and hard things, and sign yourself and your team up for it-

• Stretch sales goals? Us us us!
• Difficult account to manage? We got this.
• Implementing a new chat software for the entire company? Yes ma'am.

Deploy all the inner Simon Sinek in you and convince your team ...

• Why is this hard thing meaningful to the company?
• Why is this hard thing meaningful to them personally?
• Why do you believe in them and that they are destined to take on this hard thing? (You are the one, Neo.)

Unleash you ability to prioritize, plan, and say no with them.
It's like preparing your kids for a long camping trip. Help them pack their backpacks. Nudge them with the right questions.

"What are the things you will need to do after you wake up?"

"Brush my teeth and poop."

At times, they will need to you be the arbitrator, the mediator, the tie breaker. Be ready to play the role of yes and no.

In other words, prime them psychologically; prep them organisationally.

2️⃣ DURING THE PAIN:Be the best narrator you can be.
Tell them we are suffering purposefully, failing meaningfully, and progressing positively.

"Look. I know it's hard, but we knew it would be hard to unbox 1,203 pallets of deliveries, and you prepared everything precisely for this."

Be the master in removing roadblocks, deploying resources, asking for the attention and support of higher powers.

• Finance team getting in the way? Take the CFO out to lunch.
• Other VPs need to hear what y'all are doing? Request 5 minutes in the Senior Leadership Team Weekly Meeting to provide an executive update.

Be the best therapist to help them hate themselves and each other less as shit hits the fan.
And yes shit will hit fans- big, fast spinning fans.

3️⃣ AFTER THE PAIN: Be the mirror for them individually and collectively
Lead and facilitate individual reflections, recognitions, celebrations: Start Stop Continue, C.O.I.N., beers, Karaoke.

Be their loudest promoter inside the company and inside their own minds

• Gloat about them to your peers and your bosses and do it so well that your peers and bosses will want to send physical thank you cards to your team members.
• Become their proud parent and love them unconditionally. Talk and listen to them, one on one, thoroughly, and timely. For those you have to remove from the team, do this even more wholeheartedly,

The Bottomline:
Sounds like a lot? I get it. I know this sounds hard, but you can do this, because you want to do hard things.

Or just reach out to me. I can share more war stories of dragging teams into doing hard things.

You Can To support Me.
1. Reply to this and chat with me!
This is my personal email. Tell me what you think of this. Or whatever is on your mind. I will always reply, I guarantee it.

And if I fail to keep my promise? Email me and let me know at siu.david@hey.com 🙃

2. Share this with someone whom you think wants to sound smarter, and or anyone who deserves something light and fun.  (Plus, they trust your recommendations more than my LinkedIn ads.)

Thank you for reading this. I think about leadership & psychology in the showers. I know it's odd, but these topics are important and fun. I hope you find them useful too.

David