The Great Resignation = Prioritize Self-Worth

3 min readDec 5, 2021

This was from the latest edition of The Optimized Report newsletter, a collection of actionable ideas to help small business teams improve their performance, profit, and potential without sacrificing what’s most important.

Spending time with my family this past holiday and welcoming a baby girl into the world last weekend made me think.

I’ve worked on it for a while now, but it reminded me that we’re all distracted.

We’ve become human doings, not human beings.

We live so much in the past or stress about the future.

But the one thing that matters the most is right now.

Now, on to this week’s optimized ideas: 👇

1/ The First Thing Your Team Needs To Succeed

Every team needs a direction.

They need a North Star. Great teams know the difference between strategy and tactics. A single big company objective, that’s clear and simple, is the strategy.

Everything else is tactics on how to achieve the strategy.

Leaders who bounce around chasing one strategic golden goose to the next cause confusion, burnout, and noncompliance from their teams.

Focus on the objective.

2/ When Can You Stop Working

“Because any time you put towards work is time you’re not putting towards fun and especially memories. Even for someone who truly loves what they do, it’s unlikely they would choose to work as hard or on the same things if they didn’t feel the need to accumulate more resources.”

You work hard to accumulate a finite amount of resources.

I say finite because when you die, it’s gone. The goal is to make life feel more fun and meaningful over time. To make it more memorable. It shouldn’t be a pursuit to accumulate resources.

When you do, you invest your time in accumulation and not living.

3/ Use This To Network More Effectively

“Give them a moment for the gentle, pleasant first impression of you to sink in.”

Most people fail to network effectively.

They either ask the same ‘ole boring questions, like “how’s the weather?” or they go into a spiel about themselves and keep riding the it’s all about me train.

Chris Voss has an excellent framework to start any networking conversation:

Hold out your hand, smile, and introduce yourself with your first name only — nothing more.
Use Dynamic Silence. Let them react. Wait for them to give their first name.
While smiling, ask them: “What about (one-second pause) what you do makes you passionate?”
Here’s your fourth follow-on step: Mirror™ and Label™ from this point on, using Dynamic Silence liberally.

4/ How Ryan Reynolds Built a Business Empire

Ryan built his brand on a unique acting style.

He’s good-looking, funny, and plays his roles with incredible uniqueness. It’s him.

In an interview, he admits he was never “funny” as a child. But he used his niche to fuel an empire.

He went on to create a marketing agency that prioritizes creativity over profit. He first generates an idea and then tries to find a brand that the idea fits with; most agencies do the opposite.

His goal is creativity first.

5/ Young People Are Leaving Their Jobs in Record Numbers — And Not Going Back

“Young workers are prioritizing their self-worth.”

Nobody want’s to watch their life waste away in a 9–5, where your employer controls every facet of your time.

It’s like herding human cattle.

“That’s especially true for millennials; a 2020 Gallup poll showed 74% did not want to return full-time to offices, the highest of any age cohort.”

Economists are predicting the Great Resignation is only getting started.

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