The Weekly Minute - February 16, 2024
I’ll start today’s post with a couple congratulations in the sports world:
To those Chiefs for winning back-to-back Super Bowls and their third in five years. They are officially a dynasty.
And to Caitlyn Clark, the now all-time leading scorer in women’s college basketball history. What a superstar, who has elevated women’s sports to a new level.
p.s. I had Cuban Coffee for the first time this past week. And oh my gosh, it’s my favorite.
On Exceptional Service, A Story
I wanted to share an exceptional moment of service I experienced last night. It took place in the Delta Air Lines Sky Club at the Fort Lauderdale airport.
I was doing some work while waiting for my flight, when a Delta employee/server engaged me with a big smile. She asked if I wanted some coffee cake.
I probably didn’t need it, but I was seduced by her smile and reluctantly said yes.
She returned a couple minutes later with a Michelin Star type of dessert, with chocolate glaze over the cake and blueberries on the side.
I was impressed with the 1) incredible service through an engaging smile and the 2) extra steps it took to make the appearance of an exquisite dessert.
Shout out to you, Delta employee. You're a rockstar and made my night. I'm sure you do that to many people on a daily basis.
I wish I knew your name to properly shout you out. 👏
On Inspiration
Painter and visual artist Chuck Close on inspiration (Hat tip to James Clear)
“The advice I like to give young artists, or really anybody who’ll listen to me, is not to wait around for inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work. If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightning to strike you in the brain, you are not going to do an awful lot of work.
All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself. Things occur to you. If you’re sitting around trying to dream up a great idea, you can sit there a long time before anything happens. But if you just get to work, something will occur to you and something else will occur to you and something else that you reject will push you in another direction. Inspiration is absolutely unnecessary and somehow deceptive. You feel like you need this great idea before you can get down to work, and I find that’s almost never the case.”
Source: Interview (March 2007)
On Building Great Teams
A Simple Question to Help Your Team Define Success (via Harvard Business Review)
The vast majority of teams aren’t aligned on what even constitutes success
I thought HBR did a good job of explaining this idea of a “champagne question,” that is ‘If we were drinking champagne on New Year’s Eve because your organization had just completed an outstanding year, what would have been accomplished? How would you measure that success?’
The champagne question helps bring Stephen Covey’s principle of “beginning with the end in mind” to life
Just A Few Random Thoughts
Learning to say no to meetings is a necessary skill
Be in a hurry to learn, not in a hurry to get validation
Every day is an opportunity to create a living masterpiece
Invest in others’ growth
Your best is enough
