A long run of the same play still meets people hearing it for the first time.

RESILIENCE

WHAT THIS MEANS

Familiarity is entirely one-sided. The three hundredth performance is routine for everyone on stage and completely new for the person in row F who saved for the ticket. The same asymmetry runs through teaching, service, medicine, and any answer you have given so many times it has gone smooth in your mouth. Your boredom is invisible to them, and their first time is invisible to you unless you keep it in mind.

Before you deliver something you have delivered before, remind yourself who is receiving it today. A small effort to speak as though it were new is usually the whole difference.

A QUESTION TO SIT WITH

What do you repeat daily that is new to whoever receives it?

MORE IN DISCIPLINE, WORK & STANDARDS

Free, with nothing to buy inside it.