Hi Reader!
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Happy Memorial Day to everyone in the states. In addition to enjoying BBQs, picnics and the unofficial start of summer fun, we're grateful for, and remembering, all the courageous heroes who made the ultimate sacrifice for the freedoms we appreciate today.

Last week, I did a free training called "4 Secrets to 4x Meetings: accomplishing twice as much, in half the time." It was wonderful to see a lot of friendly faces there, and to hear so much positive feedback. If you're interested in checking out the replay, you can register for it here.

This week's creative thinking workout:

Prompt yourself. ​ ​ Last week, I shared "how to become an idea machine" (inspired by James Altucher's work). But it's challenging to simply "come up with ideas." Uh... ideas about what? It helps immensely to have prompts. ​ The whole notion of prompts got a kick in the behind about a year and a half ago. Betcha know why. Just as smart prompts help Generative AI tools deliver better results — smart prompts can help our own creativity deliver better results. ​ For this week's workout, pick a meaningful challenge you'd like to put some creative thinking towards. Then, rather than jumping into creating solutions, spend 5 - 10 minutes thinking about prompts for yourself first. Then use those prompts to stimulate your thinking. ​ ​Prompts might be made up of: Questions Challenges Instructions Constraints ​ For instance, I'm always trying to think of new ideas for this "creativity workout" section of my newsletter. A few prompts that could help stimulate ideas for myself: What could people do in a short amount of time to force themselves to think differently? What fun workshop ideas could I remix in interesting ways? Think of ten ideas, as if you were Richard Branson. Come up with an idea inspired by something you can see out your window right now. ​ This whole concept is pretty meta, because these creativity workouts are always prompts in and of themselves. ​ And if you want to get even more meta, you could prompt AI to give you prompts for your own creative thinking. (Just don't outsource the actual creative thinking to AI — or your creativity muscles will atrophy rather than strengthen. Shudder.)

​Crushing the Soulcrushers​

What to do when co-workers don't appreciate your value

Raise your hand if you've every felt any of these feels:

• "No one ever acknowledges the hard work I put in."
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• "It's like everything I do goes unnoticed and unappreciated."
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• "My work never seems to matter to anyone."
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• "It feels like I'm invisible at work."

This is an email, so of course I can't actually tell if your hand is raised. But it probably should be. Because almost all of us have felt this way at some point, if not often. (These kinds of thoughts are fuel for soulcrushers, by the way. They feast on it.)
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It's hard to enjoy our work when we feel this way, naturally. But there's a surefire solution — and it isn't used nearly often enough.
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The problem with all of the thought statements above is that this thinking cedes control of our feelings and energy to other people. And those people are busy dealing with their own stuff.
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If people aren't appreciating the value we bring, the most empowering solution is to...
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​Deliver even more value. ​
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Be more proactive. Create solutions to problems nobody else is fixing. Mentor someone. "Manage up" and make our supervisors look brilliant. Share our ideas first. Bring more energy and positivity. Challenge ourselves to do things 15% better than anyone else is doing. Whatever we can think of to bring the value, bring it.
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Imagine the alternative for a sec. Stewing in frustration and doubling down on the status quo (or phoning it in) won't solve the problem — and it makes us weaker.
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Delivering even more value makes us stronger and makes us feel good about ourselves.
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It is very, very difficult to lose with this approach. And yet very, very few people take advantage of it. Most would rather complain and let the soulcrusher infestation remain.
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Let's crush some soulcrushers,

-Tim-

Let's Lightbulb | Creating outcome-oriented-offsites (ooo!) that are fun, creative, and insanely productive — helping leaders achieve twice as much, in half the time.

Try a no-risk, no-fee "One-Hour Offsite" with your team. Yes, it's actually only one hour. No, it's not actually an offsite — it's over Zoom. But your team will surprise yourselves with how much you'll accomplish in a short amount of time.
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​Just hit reply and say something along the lines of, "hey, tell me more about that thing."

Every week in this email, I share a new creative thinking exercise and tips on making our work fun again (#CrushingTheSoulcrushers).

Thanks for reading.