🍣 10 short ideas for stressful times (plus a deal)

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Hey friend – Rob here.

Is it an overstatement to say smart, memorable quotes saved my life?

I don't think it is, if you read "save" as "gave me the clarity i needed to not spin out of control every other day".

That is the primary reason i started Salmon Theory, to help project that feeling into the world as best i can.

By sharing ideas that are easy to mind, and therefore much more likely to stick around and be applied.

So, in this short email, i got two things for you.

First, a deal.

You're getting this because in the past you've expressed interest in Salmon Theory+.

Well, for you only, i've created a 30-day free trial, which you can access here.

No one else in the wider email base has access to this link (truly, you can ask around).

By upgrading, you will get:

80% more short yet sharp content on practising strategy with compassion, clarity and creativity
Access to a private community where other strategists, founders and marketing directors can help you grow
Access to 400+ other ideas, case studies and guides in the archive to reduce your strategy overwhelm

I hope you'll consider giving it a go.

Now, 10 short ideas for stressful times.

"One has to be well. To lead well." Joey Hubbard

Learned this the hard way during covid, and in fact i feel like i'm still (re)learning it every day.

"Nothing is true all the time." Jane Fonda

While we like to villainise people and create tribes, this is exceptional wisdom by an exceptionally wise person.

"The problem with never being satisfied is that the loser is also going to be you." Seth Godin

For all those moments where everyone says you're doing great, and you simply... can't quite feel it like they do.

"See enough and write it down, I tell myself, and then some morning when the world seems drained of wonder, some day when I am only going through the motions of doing what I am supposed to do on that bankrupt morning I will simply open my notebook and there it will all be, a forgotten account with accumulated interest, paid passage back to the world out there." Joan Didion

The biggest benefit of writing your thoughts as you have them is the opportunity to use them for perspective later.

"You need to hate the world enough to change it, but love it enough to consider it worth changing." G.K. Chesterton

One of the reasons why entrepreneurship, in many ways, is one hell of an emotional paradox.

"Calm is contagious." Navy SEAL maxim

Underrated leadership trait: being able to lower the temperature of conversations in order to maximise clarity.

"People don’t want a strategy, they want a change to their business." Imogen Crawford

From a conversation i recently had with a fellow consultant, and it was the kick in the gut i needed that day.

"Style—to renounce all but the essential, so that the essential may speak." Freya Stark

To be mindful, in this sense, is to be stylish as hell.

"WAIT (why am I talking)." Anne Lamott

Not a quote but an acronym, which perfectly captures our need to be more comfortable with interpersonal silence.

"Diversity is a reality, inclusion is a choice." Ndu Uchea

Doing the right thing is hard, but that's precisely why those who do it end up being the most valuable people around.

I hope some of these help you stay in the moment while everything else seems to be swirling around.

Keep swimming,

Rob

Ps. Here's your 30-day free trial to Salmon Theory+.