Some advice,
from me,
to me

25 Tips on How to Behave

I have an ongoing list of tips to help me remember how I want to behave. Any other suggestions? Add in comments or tweet me.

1) Realize that everyone has their own internal challenge with which they are dealing — empathy, kindness, and tolerance will go a long way to smoothing relationships. Patience. Generosity. Compassion.

2) When calling someone for an unscheduled talk, always identify yourself by name, position and organization (or relationship) and ask if now is a good time to speak . Keep calls short. Follow up via e-mail or text message. Reduce endless email loops — put all relevant information into a first e-mail.

3) Always, always say Please and Thank You.

4) Mark down people’s birthdays on the calendar and remember to send them a quick note on their special day.

5) Self-respect. Also, demonstrate respect for others’ bodies, abilities, gifts, and strengths/weaknesses. There is no “better than” or “worse than” — there are definitely people of varying talents — the challenge is in matching the person to the task at hand.

6) When someone wants to schedule an appointment, give them three options and mark as tentative on the calendar, then when they confirm a single one, erase the two unused options. Better yet, offer Office Hours with open appointments that you can take and have them schedule themselves.

7) Produce something creative every day — a blog post, image, design, poem, something delicious to eat, play music, and more.

8) Develop a visionboard and refer to it often. Find role models on whom you can model your own behavior. Be accountable, show up, persist, persevere. https://monicadear.wordpress.com/visionboard-2015-2025/

9) Choose organic as much as possible. Shop local farmers’ markets. Compost all food waste.

10) Buy only things that you actually consume or use regularly. Reduce clutter — donate any unused items as soon as possible.

11) Cultivate at least 5 friendships in your life. If you have these friends, you have everything.

12) Pack reusable bags in the trunk of the car, so they’re ready for a shopping trip.

13) Always compliment / find something to comment positively on.

14) Say what you *want* to happen, instead of a negative construction; for example:

INCORRECT: “Don’t put your dirty socks there.”

CORRECT: “Let’s place your laundry into this container here.”

15) Learn something new every day. Develop a list of new topics you wish to master, and update this list frequently.

16) Sleep at least 8 hours a night.

17) Cultivate mindfulness — prayer, meditation, thoughtfulness, daydreaming, “spacing out” — give your mind a break and let your imagination soar.

18) Nutrition — increase healthy options such as dark leafy greens, fruit, vegetables, and whole grains. Eight glasses of water for hydration.

19) Volunteer — even a half-hour a week will make a difference. Stick by a cause you care about.

20) Stretch your muscles every day — run, yoga, walking, running, swimming, calisthenics — keep active.

21) Reduce toxicity, in food, chemicals, relationships, or situations. Move towards wholesome/healthful choices. Cut off, remove, and radically depart from places or people that make you ill. Replace with health, wellness, nutrition, and taking care.

22) Do something that stretches you — if it is a little bit exciting/frightening/anxiety-producing, that might be a signal of an area or topic where you want to grow. Little dreams never inspire anyone. Big dreams inspire everyone.

23) Keep a blog — collect your thoughts somewhere. Also publish to other places like LinkedIn Pulse, Wordpress, Tumblr, or your own site.

24) Help other people meet each other — the wider network is the place where most beneficial connections happen. Use LinkedIn to keep notes on how/where you meet professional contacts.

25) When thinking about a project, new concept, business idea, or problem, think about the impact far into the future, or at scale, or as part of a whole ecosystem. For example, take your suggestion and extend it 20–25 years into the future, or multiply it by 10,000, or or see how it “fits in” to what currently is working. If you still envision it being effective/profitable/helpful, then you might still be on the right path.

Bonus Tip: Remember that every day is a gift — that is why it is called the “present”: An underlying sense of gratefulness will help with optimism, increased health, better management of stress, and peace of mind. Cultivate detachment from material possessions and focus on your ability to enjoy as much as possible “in the moment.”