Seven Decades of The Letter
Issue 70
Dearest friends, a new decade is upon us.
Today, The Letter turns 70 weeks. What’s significant about 70? The number reminds me of my mom, who was 71 when she passed away almost two years ago.
I contemplated sharing in each issue over ten weeks, one dynamite lesson she taught me throughout her life. As I wrote, not so much as a lesson popped out, but more meanderings based upon her love of words, which she gracious passed along to me.
Rather than plan ten weeks in advance, let’s see what happens this week and go from there. Shall we?
We shall. Onward…
(You know I wanted to write momward…)
My Word Model
My mom was articulate and persuasive, a master Scrabble player, and an excellent communicator.
A customer service nut, she’d write letters to companies that fell short. She did it to see more good in the world, to raise the collective standards, to demand the integrity she dosed, and possibly to seek a refund ;)
Both my parents instilled a very strong bullshit meter in me. So strong I’m astounded when nobody calls out the fluorescent pink elephant in the room.
Really? Are we all going to pretend we don’t see that? I can’t. I won’t. What took me many years to figure out is that not everyone does see it. Or it’s not pink. Or it’s not an elephant.
Your conditioning determines where we stand, and where we stand determines your perspective. If you wish to change your perspective, you may at any time. But left unchecked or unchanged, your default perspective is determined by your past (which you’ll trick yourself into believing is your truth).
You can change your perspective at any time. It’s not that easy, but it is that simple.
An Important Point of View
I write for brands, and brands are taught to know their audience.
But, before we speak to someone, don’t we need to know who’s speaking? A message can’t connect if the speaker isn’t present, and brands rarely know from whom their words emanate. I know because I’m often the one trying to figure it out!
Brands that are afraid to take a stand, that wish to appeal to the greatest number of people, speak in broad strokes, from an almost ghost-like perspective. They use the right words, but they’re not saying anything memorable—like an arrow with a rubber tip that’s not sharp enough to penetrate.
A strong point of view will offend some and delight others. Offending some is worth delighting others because the alternative is nothing at all.
Think for a moment about anyone worth quoting; anyone who’s made history or deeply touched many lives: they’re known for their point of view (and not everyone has to agree with it).
You needn’t be a brand to heed this advice. Speak from, write from, parent from a point of view. Grab onto something and go. You can always shift it. In fact, you most definitely will.
Weak Planner
Every Sunday, I plan the week ahead. Using my well-organized brain, I make calculated decisions about my time, so I’m not making in-the-moment plans the way unproductive folks do.
In my dreams.
Though I dream of being a week planner, I’m more of a weak planner.
Enter Monday Hour One, a concept I learned about from Brooke Castillo. (By the way, my love-hate feelings for her can be found in this essay).
Brooke is a power planner and productivity junkie—way wiser than I’m giving her credit for here. She swears by plotting her week to the minute (which won’t happen on my watch) and believes one cannot create the life they want without very seriously considering the worthiness of their time.
An excerpt from her latest podcast on time and trust:
Planning your week with your prefrontal cortex, which is making decisions ahead of time with your highest level brain and honoring those plans, is the key to succeeding in your life. You cannot let your primitive brain run your life and get the highest level of success possible. You literally can’t do it.
You’re going to plan with your highest brain, and you’re going to have a fit with your lowest brain, and you’re going to do it anyway over and over and over again until you create the life you want. And how you create the life you want is directly related to how you treat your highest asset in your business life, in your life, which is the time you have on this planet.
What do you want to spend your time doing? How do you want to treat your time?
Here’s a previous podcast episode on Monday, Hour One, if you’re curious.
I know I needn’t firmly plan my week to find ease, enjoyment, and success. A talent I bring to this world is intuition—feeling into myself, sensing what a moment needs, and trusting myself to improvise accordingly. Scheduling emails in advance, so they auto-fire without input? Loading Instagram posts ahead, so your work is done, and you can go on vacation?
Ugh!
Who’s there to read the room? Who’s listening to comments made on the previous post and charting the next day’s course accordingly? Who’s feeling into our collective energy? Better yet, from whose perspective is this content coming?
Left-brain, operational types swear by planning ahead. Too much planning makes intuitives like me want to die. Calculation is cold. Intuition is warm.
How’s that for perspective?
(I don’t believe that entirely, but you see how powerful it is to take a stand :)
Visiting My Mom
Every day I drive Emma to school, I pass my mom’s grave. How fortunate for all of us. Each time we pass the cemetery, we say aloud, “Hi, Mimo.”
Today, after drop off, I stopped for a visit, and my mom and I spent the morning together. Before leaving, I collected sticks from the field and decorated her. ❤️
I haven’t the foggiest idea how I went from lessons from my mom to the rest of what’s written in The Letter, but I trust, as I hope you do, that we ended up just where we needed to.
With love, Simone
Your bit about perception is spot on. It took me forever to realize that not everyone sees that pink elephant and even longer to accept that some people see a fanged T-Rex where I might look and see daffodils!
Scrabble-Queen Mothers. Something else we share in common.