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Hey friends,

Today's Christmas Eve newsletter is about joy.

Specifically, why choosing it (according to one of the world's leading psychologists) is the most effective way to live. It reminds me of a talk I watched a long time ago on decision-making where by the end the speaker said, "This strategy works...except for choosing who to love, where to live, and what to do for a living."

For those things, you follow joy.

Doing what you want (surprisingly) works

Marshall Rosenberg is the author of a book called Nonviolent Communication, one of the most powerful books on communication that I hadn't even heard of until recently.

I grabbed the audio version and it’s one of the most powerful reads on self-talk I’ve experienced with one of the biggest takeaways being this:

But isn’t that selfish? Aren’t we shirking responsibilities? Is that not wrong?

These questions come from a place of self-judgment and when you’re in that mode, you are what psychologists call “divorced from your own needs” which makes it very difficult to do things genuinely.

How to Operate Effectively

I come from a family that hit as a form of discipline. And as Rosenberg mentions that's one way to get the outcome you want, but it isn't the way to get the motivation you want. My parents are wonderful people by the way, they just didn't know what they didn't know.

We want joy to be the motivation (if you've seen The Break-up with Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Aniston: "I want you to want to do the dishes!")

Rosenberg suggests that joy is a natural state that arises when our actions are in harmony with our values and needs. He emphasizes that true joy comes from autonomy and self-fulfillment, not from pleasing others or adhering to societal expectations.

He has simple but seemingly radical advice: Don't do anything that isn’t play.

How to Choose Joyous Play

Rosenberg says we can experience “Joyous play” by replacing lack-of-choice language (e.g. "I can't") with acknowledgement-of-choice language (e.g. "I won't"), and then staying grounded in clear awareness of the need behind everything we do (connection, peace, autonomy, etc).

When you have clear awareness of this need, you can decide to either stop doing what you don’t want to do, or reestablish your why and do it with joy.

Here's an exercise he suggests:

1. List Daily Activities: Begin by listing all the activities you do in a typical day, focusing especially on those you do not enjoy or find burdensome.
2. Identify Feelings and Needs: For each activity on your list, identify what feelings arise when you think about that activity. Do you feel tired, frustrated, anxious, or maybe indifferent? Then, try to discern what needs are not being met through this activity. Is it a need for joy, creativity, autonomy, growth, or something else?
3. Reframe the Perspective: Consider how each activity could be transformed to meet your needs better. This might involve changing how you approach the task, finding aspects of the activity that can be fulfilling, delegating it, or rethinking the necessity of the activity altogether.

Example

1. Activity: Doing household chores.
2. Feelings: Tired, bored.
3. Unmet Needs: Need for fun, creativity, participation.
4. Reframe: Listen to favorite music or a podcast while doing chores; turn the chores into a game or challenge; involve family members and do it as a group activity for shared responsibility and fun, or simply stop doing it altogether (hire out).

This exercise also helps us uncover the many other reasons we do things (which he recommends avoiding):

• Approval
• To escape punishment
• To avoid shame
• To avoid guilt
• Out of duty

"Should, ought, must” is language that denies choice and he considers it “the most socially dangerous and personally unfortunate" of all the ways we act when we’re cut off from our needs.

But could you really only do things you want to do?

Think about successful people you know. How often do they do things they don’t want to do? Rarely, is the answer to that question. And it’s not because they’re full of ego; it’s because they understand they are most effective when doing what they genuinely want.

It’s a hack.

Practice it.

Joyous play.

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📈 Behind the Business: How I Sell Services (Part 2)

Last week I shared a few tactics around how I sell services and many of you responded with positive feedback (thank you for that, it goes a long way).

Here's a few more behind-the-scenes tactics (unchanged for nearly 10 years):

1. Start with email. I was so young when I started consulting, nobody would take me seriously. It was ageism at its finest, so I started to reach out to people via email and since I was a decent communicator who made good points like, "Sir, your website is 29 years old," they listened to me (without having to see my tiny face).
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2. 20-minute consultation. I still use the free version of calendly for my consultations, though I’ve adjusted the time to 20 minutes (rather than the default 30 minutes). This achieves a couple things: it forces me to go deep quickly and it feels like a bonus when we go over time––that's on purpose.
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3. Electronic estimates. When I started, I was using PDFs. I’d lose them on my desktop and have to manually track everything––just don’t do that if you can help it. If you’ve sent more than two estimates, you’re ready for an online system. As mentioned last week, my estimates typically include two options and they’re sent using Freshbooks ($30-$50/month), an electronic tool that allows me to save client info, store estimates, convert to invoices with one-click, set a deposit, see when invoices have been opened, and allow clients to pay online.

Tactics like this make the process part easier and helps create space for thinking about the most important aspect of sales: who you want to help, how you can help them, and how to be the best at it.

Want a hack for that last one?

You'll never guess it.

Joy.

Cheers and Merry Christmas!

​Love this ❤️❤️❤️​
​Dig it 👍👍​
​Do better 😕​

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Tanya Moushi ("moo-shee"),
​Moushi & Co. | Daily Inspire
​Designing Good Business

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