I enjoyed the new short LinkedIn course that Seth Godin created about decision-making where he approached the concept of sunk costs in a whole new way. It’s a concept I first learned from him in this blog post and his signature altMBA course which I took in 2019.

This time, Seth Godin focused on the idea of chips, the ones we earned by working hard or paying a lot of our money or/and time. An example could be the certificate we worked hard to achieve and paid so much for. We look for a job that matches the certificate we earned (the chip). If the job that this certificate provides for me turns out horrible or makes me miserable, I don’t make a decision about leaving it because I am hoarding the chips I earned. The chips weigh me down from making a new decision. A good decision about my happiness. Although I have new information: “I am miserable doing this job”, I still choose not to make a decision based on the past price I paid to get here. Which is irrelevant. It’s already a sunk cost. Seth calls it a gift from your past self to your current self that you don’t need to accept. You can simply say no, thank you.

Make your decisions based on the information you have now and the logical consequences that would follow. The longer you hold on to something that does not serve you, the more you will get attached emotionally to the chips, to the identity, to the status. Along the way, you hoard more chips that will stop you from embarking on new paths and new decisions.

Check the course out. You have 24Hrs to preview it for free.

Last Sunday I did not go Live on Instagram as I promised in my newsletter. I said I would go live every Sunday of September and I went on Live for 2 Sundays in a row, however, the third Sunday did not work out because of my lack of coordination with my planned guest. I also admit that I wanted to visit my parents that Sunday evening because I couldn’t do it over the weekend as usual. So, I simply did not do a Live. I did not apologize for it in my newsletter. I did not apologize for it in an Instagram story. I thought to myself “people are busy already, it’s not like they are waiting for it, I only mentioned it in my newsletter 2 weeks ago, oh and at the end of the 2nd live too when my guest and I said we’d continue the subject the week after…”.

Maybe it is true. Maybe people were actually too busy to notice I did not show up Live as promised. But, I knew. I made a promise. I should have honored that promise, or at least given an explanation of why it wouldn’t work out. I could have checked with my guest and found out she wouldn’t be able to make it early enough to be able to invite another guest or prepare a topic to talk about on my own.

Here is my late apology. I will show up on the 4th Sunday as promised.

This is your gentle reminder to work hard at keeping your promises, too.

Your word is your promise.

I woke up last night and couldn’t get back to sleep, so my brain decided to get active solving a current problem for me; what to wear to the employees awards event at work. I started mentally scanning my clothes to figure out just the right outfit that looks special enough to wear as the event MC and also comfortable enough for dancing, without the need to get something new. I nominated 2 outfits and checked with my friend today, who in turn helped me make the cut.

I am telling you this story because I noticed that I have been lately obsessing about a relationship in my life. Whenever there is an idle moment in the day, I start thinking about what they said and what I said, and this started to annoy me. The outfit story, however, made me finally realize that it’s simply not an obsession. My brain believes this relationship is a problem to solve. It keeps running scripts and what-if and if-only scenarios to help me reach peace about it.

I felt relief when I got this. It’s clear to me now. I have two choices; I either start a difficult conversation with the other party in the relationship or accept the fact that mistakes happened and things changed, maybe forever. I need to decide how important this relationship is to me and act accordingly.

Meanwhile, I can pray on it and put my mind to peace. It’s a problem at a whole another plane. The spiritual plane. Thinking it over will not make it disappear.

Maybe I did not mention this before, but I work as an assistant sales manager to enhance sales team performance.

Because I love teaching so much, I started an initiative called “Sales Talk Tuesdays” in late 2019 where I gathered new hires with seasoned sales employees to openly talk about their experience now that they are in the field to support them and motivate them.

I used to think and come up with a topic every week. It was not easy. I did not use slides. However, what helped was using some tips from the book The Art of Gathering which taught me to prime the attendees with a cool invitation and set rules for the meeting and end it sweetly. So I always got some kind of desert like donuts or marshmallows (When I talked about the marshmallow test) for example. Unfortunately, we paused these sessions since 2020 quarantine, and I did not attempt to do them online.

Now that we are all back to work, I kicked off this initiative again with a more structured format that extends 5 weeks. I have created a unique material for each week. This way I can re-use it with each new group while also getting the chance to refine it. The material is not perfect, but it is evolving. I still need to create a feedback form where attendees can let me know what topics they wish I cover more of during these sessions.

I am happy about this initiative, it lets me show up at my best and I created it to make my job more meaningful, what can you do to make your job more meaningful?