Repeat what’s successful

It’s OK to stick with the tried and true

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of I Heart Radio.
Good Morning, This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.
Today's tip is to repeat what's successful. Why not follow
one win with another? If you're striving to be innovative

(00:23):
at work and to lead an insta worthy life at home,
you may feel pulled towards trying new things. And trying
new things can be a lot of fun, but it
can also be helpful to have a few surefire strategies
in your back pocket to rely on when you want
to direct your time and creativity to other places. So
what kind of successes can we repeat? A lot of

(00:47):
great managers in HR pros have go to questions that
they ask in pretty much every interview. Having standard questions
saves you time planning the interview, and it lets you
be more present during the interview because you're not rethinking
the sequence of questions you planned out. You already know
from past experience that it works. Asking the same questions

(01:10):
also creates consistency across applicants, which is desirable for promoting
equity to Similarly, you could have a go to plan
for meetings. The same basic template can work with a
range of one on ones and team meetings greeting and
check in, followed by a quick celebration of recent successes,
next a deep dive into top priorities, and finally a

(01:33):
recap of who's doing what when, and a motivating launch
to send people on their way. You can even use
similar language from week to week to introduce and wrap
up each section of the meeting, repeating what successful can
work in your personal life. Too. Long time listeners know
that my family loves going to the Jersey Shore in
the summer. In fact, we love going to the same

(01:55):
town on the Jersey Shore every year and eating at
the same ice cream parlor in that town. Some of
us even love getting the same flavor of ice cream
every time. That would be me chocolate peanut butter all
the way. I've experimented with Moose tracks, but it's hard
to argue with success. Part of our delight comes from nostalgia.

(02:18):
Each experience calls to mind our past summers at the
beach with lots of good memories. But some of the
delight also comes from the fact that this is a
vacation that satisfies our needs and desires. It works for
our family. We could try another beach but well, there
probably isn't a perfect beach, and this is a perfectly

(02:38):
good one. Social gatherings offer all kinds of opportunities for
repeating successes, too. Plenty of groups of friends have standing dates,
say brunch the first Saturday of every month at the
same restaurant, or happy hour at the bar around the
corner from the office every Thursday. If you like planning parties,
that is awesome. But if you enjoy the party it's

(03:00):
self more than the planning, then feel free to use
a given plan more than once. The same menu can
work for more than one dinner party. We serve fondue
or a large tenderloin from Costco. Those work. I even
heard of a couple who routinely throw the same dinner
party two nights in a row, same menu, same flowers,

(03:22):
same music playing in the background, just a different set
of guests on each day. Even if you're not up
for full scale re enactments, you can repeat particular successful elements.
If you rearrange furniture to make room for more guests
at a cocktail party. Afterwards, you can use your phone
to take a two minute video walking through your house. Then,

(03:42):
when you're preparing for your next get together, you know
what to do, and let's not forget conversational success. It's
a common social icebreaker for everyone to share one fun
fact about themselves. So if you've shared one fact in
the past that proved to be a good conversation starter,
we'll go ahead and trot that one out again. Don't

(04:05):
get me wrong, novelty has a place in life. Since
my husband and I tend to take two weeks off
during the summer, we can do one beach week and
one new thing pulled from our list of one dreams.
If you have a favorite coffee shop, well that doesn't
mean you should decline if someone suggests meeting at a
new one. But novelty is not a good in and

(04:26):
of itself. For a while, I felt bad about ordering
chocolate peanut butter ice cream in a sugar cone every
time I went to my favorite ice cream parlor. But
if I'm only going about five times per year, I
don't have to choose a flavor I don't like as
much just to seem like the kind of person who
shakes things up. Sometimes I don't need to shake things up,

(04:48):
and that's perfectly fine. Are there successes that you repeat again?
And again, could there be more? I'd love to hear
about it. You can reach me at Before Breakfast podcast
at I heart media dot com. In the meantime, this
is Laura. Thanks for listening and here's to making the
most of our time. Hey, everybody, I'd love to hear

(05:16):
from you. You can send me your tips, your questions,
or anything else. Just connect with me on Twitter, Facebook
and Instagram at Before Breakfast pod that's B the number four,
then Breakfast p o D. You can also shoot me
an email at Before Breakfast podcast at i heeart media
dot com. That Before Breakfast is spelled out with all

(05:39):
the letters. Thanks so much, I look forward to staying
in touch. Before Breakfast is a production of I Heart Radio.
For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i
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