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- #69: Spice Girls > Vanilla Ice
#69: Spice Girls > Vanilla Ice
Shem Opolot
April 26, 2024
Hi! Welcome to The Friday Fix! You’re reading this because you probably stumbled upon this post somewhere on the internet instead of where it should be—in your inbox. But no worries; we can fix that.
Who am I? I’m Shem Opolot, a health professional turned content creator, passionate about helping people be their best selves in life and work.
Why should you subscribe?
I have over ten years of work experience in healthcare, program management, and data analytics on two continents. So, I know a little about helping you work smarter
I comb through tonnes of self-improvement content so you don’t have to, and I distill the content into bite-sized wisdom for you
I’ll occasionally make you laugh
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Hi! I'm Shem Opolot, and this is The Friday Fix, my weekly newsletter. If you've received it, you’re either subscribed or someone forwarded it to you. If you fit into the latter (yes, I’m the kind of person who uses words like “latter”) camp and want to subscribe, then click on the shiny button below:
You can also skim the past posts here.
Otherwise, grab a seat 🪑.
Happy Friday 🎉 Following last week’s anecdote: the person who cleaned out the ATM got my card and went on a spending spree before my card protested. So I’ve been on the phone with the bank all week. The last time I spent this much time on the phone with anyone, I ended up marrying them.
In other news, you could be terribly indecisive, but you’re not bottling it as badly as WhatsApp’s design team.
LIFE.
Spice Girls > Vanilla Ice
Gif by jeopardy on Giphy
What do sales have in common with heart-to-hearts? Be the Spice Girls, not Vanilla Ice.
An episode of one of my favorite podcasts gave me this analogy, so as much as I want to, I can’t take credit for it.
So…James is sitting on the couch watching his favorite TV show when his girlfriend... wait. Should we say, “wife?” Or are you okay with James and Jane living in sin?
…his girlfriend wife, Jane (you’re such a prude), bursts into the living room, distraught and desperate to “talk.”
Jane drones on for A WHILE, and James, who initially kept his knees facing the TV to show he was [still] engrossed in his show, realizes this isn’t ending soon, so he presses pause and shifts his knees to face Jane’s. Their kneecaps graze a little, even.
After Jane’s tap stops running, she pauses, and silence fills the room, stealing some oxygen from James. James misinterprets his shortness of breath as a beckoning for a response. Worse still—a solution.
James rolls out a cartoonishly long scroll of solutions for Jane to explore:
“Have you tried talking to her?”
“Put it in writing.”
“Wow, she sounds terrible. Here’s how you should respond tomorrow…”
But Jane isn’t amused by James’ unsolicited laundry list of solutions. And James is incredulous, half-wishing he could press play.
The same thing happens in sales.
A prospective customer shares their frustrations, and before they can empty their clip of complaints, the salesperson interjects with brochures. Or worse, the salesperson just tucks their flyer under the customer’s car windshield wiper.
The Spice Girls said, “Tell me what you want, what you really really want…”
While Vanilla Ice said, “And if there was a problem…Yo, I'll solve it.”
The Spice Girls are more inclined to listen, and that’s who you should emulate.
It’s not that people want to vent without hearing your solutions or hearing about your awesome product. It’s that people want to feel heard [first].
THINGS.
A quote courtesy of The Phoenix Project
Don't let success go to your head. Don't let failure go to your heart.
Now watching.
Now that my semester is over, I can finish watching Shogun, one of the best TV shows of the last couple of years.
A tweet.
You don't have a business if:
• You don't have SOPs
• You are the only manager
• You still do all the selling
• You don't have a P&L
• You can't go 2 weeks not reading emailsYou have a job. Fix all of this, and THEN you will have a business.
— Codie Sanchez (@Codie_Sanchez)
1:34 PM • Apr 22, 2024
WORK.
My favorite Excel shortcuts (for now)
If you aren’t using Ctrl + E for Flash Fill, and Alt + = for Auto Sum, you should probably start there.
But…some of my favorite underused shortcuts in Excel are:
Ctrl + Space: to select an entire column of data at once.
Select the entire column of data based on the current active cell.
and
Shift + Space: to select an entire row of data at once.
Select the entire row of data based on the current active cell.
These may seem tame, but in Excel, it’s the small things…
FUN.
The Friday Fix Playlist
In this teaser, you start with the word 'GOAL' and change one letter each time to make a new word. You must continue this process until you reach the word 'POST'.
You must do this in four (4) turns.
GOAL
— — — —
— — — —
— — — —
POST
Answer below
Shem’s picks
✅ The 5-hour rule to make any day successful.
✅ How life experience determines teenage trajectories.
Answer: There are multiple answers here, so don’t get heated:
GOAL
GOAT
COAT
COST
POST
Have a great weekend,
— Shem
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