It was such a beautiful morning.

I wanted to request a song on the radio for a music artist I love, this rainy morning just begged for it. To my utter surprise, the next song they played was by him. I turned up the volume, enjoyed the song and then sent the radio station a voice note to thank them, because that’s how radio stations engage with listeners these days, voice notes instead of phone calls. I thanked them because listening to songs you love on the radio has its magic. Even if we can simply play them on YouTube or a music app. It does not feel the same. Plus I love this radio station, for many reasons, like I was once a guest in this morning show.

I admit that I also love the customized music mixes on YouTube, Anghami and Spotify. The algorithms have gotten so good that I feel like yelling at some point while listening, “How did they know?!”. That’s magic right there that can’t be denied. Still, maybe I’m old school, but I think nothing beats the rush you feel when you hear your favorite song on the radio.

Songs on the radio are like little signs from the universe. They say: “You are aligned. Keep going”.

Anybody feels the same?

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.