Welcome to Blank Pages, the podcast where we explore the transformative power of embracing new beginnings and the potential found within the blank pages of our lives. I'm your host, Tim Pecoraro. Today, we embark on the final leg of our journey into the realm of the hard best. It's been an incredible ride, filled with insightful conversations and valuable insights, and I want to extend my gratitude to all of you for joining me on this adventure. Your feedback and support mean the world to me, so thank you.

In this episode, we delve deeper into the essence of doing hard things and doing them well. It's about stepping out of our comfort zones, embracing challenges, and striving for growth and improvement in every aspect of our lives. So buckle up as we explore the profound impact of adopting the hard best not just in our personal and professional lives but also within our communities.

Show Notes:

- Introduction to Hard Best: Tim Pecoraro sets the stage for today's episode by reflecting on the essence of the hard best journey. He emphasizes embracing challenges and making difficult decisions as catalysts for personal growth and transformation.

- The Risks and Rewards of Doing Hard Things: Tim highlights the inherent risks involved in embracing the hard best but underscores the invaluable rewards that come with it. From cultivating a positive mindset to fostering deeper connections in relationships, the journey of doing hard things is paved with opportunities for learning and development.

- Application in Relationships: Tim discusses the significance of applying the principles of hard best in relationships, emphasizing vulnerability, communication, and conflict resolution as key pillars for fostering deeper connections and intimacy.

- Professional Development: Tim explores how embracing the hard best in professional endeavors leads to skill development, resilience, and career advancement. From seeking mentorship to prioritizing quality work and meeting deadlines consistently, individuals can enhance their professional reputation and open doors to new opportunities.

- Community Engagement: Tim underscores the importance of extending the principles of hard best to community engagement, highlighting how it fosters unity, resilience, and innovation within communities. By investing effort into community initiatives and building social capital, individuals can contribute to the well-being and success of their communities.

- Interconnectedness of Professional and Communal Life: Tim emphasizes the interconnected nature of professional and communal life, illustrating how skills, relationships, personal development, and innovation transcend traditional boundaries. By leveraging experiences and learnings from one domain to enrich the other, individuals can cultivate a holistic approach to success and fulfillment.

Well, hello and welcome to Blank Pages, the podcast. A podcast for people who appreciate the new beginnings of a clean slate, but strive for the courage, willingness, curiosity and creativity available on the blank pages of new possibilities. It's the potential to move beyond, move forward, where people are willing to make new decisions from fresh perspectives and are ready to write in a much better way. So the world is waiting, and nothing listens better than a blank piece of paper. And I've been talking to you guys about the hard best, which has been for me, a very fun and fascinating little journey in conversation. So we're gonna continue going into that. And before we do, I just wanna say thank you for everyone who does listen and has been listening to the show. I appreciate your feedback that I've been getting.

Some of you been sending me some messages, which is really pretty cool. And I love that when you do that and we have a little, little chit chat sometimes in a direct message. But thanks for doing that. Thanks for liking subscribing to the show as well. You can find me on instagram pecoraro. If you go into the bio link, click on there, you can find some goodies and giveaways and things that I have that I like to share. I try to give away resources and things that will be valuable, that have shelf life that you can, yeah. Bring back at any time into your life to help you to live the best life that you can live.

But yeah, just so excited about getting into this final part of hard best that I want to talk about. I mean, I can go on all year about it because life is about making hard and difficult choices and decisions, or at least it should be. I mean, you only get better when that happens. So what I've been doing, this whole topic of doing hard things and doing hard things because you do. You wanna do them better, you wanna do hard things well, you want to do hard things best, you want to make sure that you are. Yeah, just like getting the most out of every situation. For you to be able to learn, develop and to grow and to improve. Like, that's literally, literally what I'm saying.

So I'm gonna dive into this whole part of this, getting out, further out of your comfort zone like that. I want you to remind yourself that the reason that you do hard things, it's because you don't want to be forced into change, you don't want to be pushed into doing something. You want to do the hard things that are essential for your personal growth because it's important to you. You're not going to avoid discomfort and challenges because if you do, it's going to hinder your growth. You're going to make sure that you embrace the challenges and difficulties because you know that they provide you with opportunities for learning and improvement. And then you're that person that says, you know what? I want to have a shifting mindset, a mindset that can shift. And I want to move away from the easy good, the thing that is just easy. It's good.

Right. And it's good enough. Right. But I want to move into the hard best that can lead to that transformative growth and change. So over this period, as we're going to wrap up with this and go deep into this part for you, you know, this gift that I believe of us doing the hard best. Cause I wanna hang out with people that are hard best people. I'm not saying that they make, once again, like, hey, to be friends. They make it difficult.

No, that's what I'm talking about. I'm talking about when they're friends and things are a challenge to the relationship that they do hard best. In other words, they're willing to do a difficult thing and have a conversation. They're willing to have a hard best conversation, meaning one in tough love, one that asks the real questions, the honest questions, the truthful questions, but also does it in a way that's not attacking and offending things like that. Right. I want those types of people around me. So there's risk in it, though, when you do that. Right? So that's what I've been talking about over these last several weeks.

Just, there's risk. So when. When you do hard best, the risk in it is. Here's the key takeaway, that doing hard things is essential for your personal growth. It'll get you a deeper understanding. Right. When you. That's when you take that risk.

When you take the risk and you embrace uncertainty, it can lead you to the Eustress is what I was talking about. Positive stress, which is a positive stress that promotes personal development and success. And then that Eustress can arise from challenging oneself in a situation that can be. That you can perceive as achievable. And it's an opportunity for you to grow, that you can actually do it. And then from there also that risk. It cultivates a positive mindset, setting achievable challenges, having control and autonomy. It creates a supportive mental.

Sorry, a supportive environment for people. And with that, it gives you that physical and mental preparedness that you need. It helps you to practice your mindfulness that stress management. These are ways to foster your Eustrous right and then doing the hard best in your relationships. Remember we talked about the risk factor in that, that it can lead to deeper connections though when you do it, it's hard, but when you do it, that's what it can do. So in those relationships we talked about, you know, when you're doing hard best and that's a risk factor and it's a relationships and because as people we're going to do life with people. So we talked about the risk factor, right. In doing it, the eustress you can get out of that risk doing hard best and being able to develop that positive stress.

But when you move into the relationships with it, the thing that you ultimately got to do life with, you can get that mind shift, that mindset shift that says vulnerability is a strength. I'm going to view vulnerability as strength and it fosters trust, authenticity and relationship intimacy. It's important for emotional risk taking to get that deep connection. What else? Hard best. How do I apply hard best to relationship? You do it. It's a leap of faith. It helps me build my faith for taking that leap of faith. Expressing feelings when I'm talking to someone or interests that I have, making commitments, right? So I can make a meaningful connection.

Then navigating conflict, that's how I apply it to relationship. It's going to advise me when I do hard best and I get that Eustress and that positive stress. Advises courageously addressing my conflicts that I'm in directly and avoiding avoidance tactics. How about that? Avoiding the avoidance. Emphasizing the importance of communication and resolution. And then there's growth and change together. That's what'll happen. But so, so now that you have that you can get growth and change together with other people, right? You're here, you're this person and you're doing hard best.

You want to do hard best in relationship. You want to develop that relationship. You want to, you want to, you want to get yourself to be better. A presentable person that has emotional intelligence that you have, you have your, your self management and you have self awareness and you know how to do, you know to do social awareness and you know how to do relationship management. Like this is what you want to do. Like these are all things you strive for. But wouldn't that be cool? When you do hard best in relationship, you do it together. It's important you invite others into it, into your growth, into the changes that you're going through and then you can get the support in collaboration in relationship and so why is it important? Because we're going to step a little further out, even more so a person that has all of that hard best in them, it's going to help you with your professional.

I'm an entrepreneur. I just want to give you a couple of things as we're wrapping this up. You can do skill development. There's a benefit when you do hard best in skill development. That means you're going to get into the hard work. It's going to involve learning new skills. It's going to cause you to go deeper into stuff. It's going to cause you to hone your existing skills.

It's going to make you more competent and adaptable. Right. So how do you do that? How do you get skill development professional? How do you do hard best? Well, take on a project way outside your comfort zone and then seek mentorship or something. Right. Look for that. Look for help. Invest time in continuous learning through different courses online. There's a bazillion of them.

There's courses you can go to on teachable and thinkific, I think, and on YouTube and just go learn, self study, do workshops. Second, when you do hard best for professional stuff, you're going to get resilient. So you're going to learn to face and overcome challenges. You're going to build resilience at work in your professional sphere. It's going to enable you to bounce back from yourself, setbacks and you're going to persevere in the face of adversity. So how do you get the resilience? What do you do? How do you do hard best in my professional life? Well, what you do is you want to practice your mindfulness, your stress management techniques. When you're under pressure, under the gun, under. You got to get something done, you got to knock it out.

But you do that through setting realistic goals in the work that you're taking on. Treat yourself well. Don't let the work swallow you up. You don't exist because of work. Work exists because of you. So then you can focus on solutions rather than dwelling on the problem. Here's the third thing. You get professional reputation when you do hard best in it.

What's the benefit? Well, consistent hard work. When you demonstrate you do hard stuff well and you work hard at these things, it enhances your reputation as you can be reliable. You have great character, dedicated professional. That's going to open doors to new opportunities for you. So what do you do? How do you cultivate that rep, get that reputation, prioritize quality in your work. Do excellence in your work. Don't take all the shortcuts, meet deadlines consistently. You know, seek feedback to improve your performance.

Then here's where you can just, you're a front runner, you're an innovator, right. When you do hard best, because you're going to take on, you're going to tackle difficult problems and it's going to cause you to foster creativity. Right? You're going to, it's going to make you think about being creative and really step out to be innovative, to lead for solutions. Right. In breakthroughs, in something like new ways to do something. It's like when you watch sports, they just get incrementally better because people learn to make slight little changes. A golfer can change his entire game by making one tiny adjustment. It's just incredible that we have that when we're willing to do and put in the work.

And then the fifth one I want to show you is it's career advancement, right. You could advance in the thing that you're doing. So if you're an entrepreneur, and let's just say that I don't know that you teach people how to coach better, however that is. Right. So I'm a coach. You teach people how to coach better. So that's what you do. You're out there and you want to advance in that well, because you do hard best.

You take more time, you read more, you study more, maybe you answer some of the negative things more. Like all those things you work, you invest in it, and then because of it, you demonstrate a willingness to take on a challenge that you demonstrate a willingness to put in extra effort that often will lead you to something that is promotable. If you're working with another group of entrepreneurs or for a company that's promotable, it opens up the door to advance. So if I want to do that, what do I want to do? I want to be ambitious. If I want to cultivate that in me and do hard best for my professional life, I want to set ambitious but yet achievable career goals. You know, I'm going to make myself have to get up earlier to do it. I want to make myself have to go to sleep earlier in order to get up earlier to do it. I want to make sure that I'm eating well.

I want to do all the things that are going to put me in a spot that I can meet these goals, right. But I want to challenge myself. I want to seek leadership opportunities. I want to advocate for myself. Right. I want to, I want to be a better advocate for myself by showing what I'm able to accomplish. What did I, what am I able, able to do? So if I, if I take that in my professional sense and then I think about where I can go with it, that's all community. That's outside at work.

I have a community. In my house is community. Outside my house is community. Everywhere's community. If I'm on a team, there's community. No matter what, it's community. So if I can take all this hard best thinking, this is how I'm going to go today. Hard best in, at work and in community, right? Hard best at work and community.

So if you could take hard best in your professional stuff and hard best community and you could bring them together. Right? If you could look at a way to say, like, why does it matter hard best in your, in the community. Like what's, what's that matter? Like, why is that so important if you're one of those hard best community people? Well, it's because you're one of those people that believe in unity and solidarity. Think about that. You believe in having, investing effort into a community. It's going to build some social capital. It's going to strengthen bonds and networks in the community. It's going to help learn to build support.

It's going to build some resilience and adaptability in the community. It's going to help it to be innovative and creative. Empowerment and inclusivity. Right. The communities that are going to value hard work and empower individuals from very diverse backgrounds to contribute their unique talents and perspectives, they're going to demonstrate that they have the ability to do extraordinary things. Like that's what you're looking for. I mean, that's what we're hoping for. Right? I mean, that's.

I mean, literally, we would like to be able to say if I believe in my own myself, to be able to get better as an individual, and then I can work on things, I can understand that there's risk and that risk moves into relationships and then with relationships I'm going to go do those professionally, not only in my house, but professionally and at work. Well, then if there's work, I got to think about community. Like, it all just gets bigger from me. This one person steps all the way out into where I need to think about is community. So what I want to do is take these and kind of bring them together. What, what is, what's the contributions, right? What are the contributions or the benefits of hard work or of hard best at work and community. Right? So the contributions between the professional and communal life, they're interconnected. My professional and my community life are interconnected, right.

Because I have skill development professionally, I have skill development in my community. You know, I can learn new things, how to connect to my community better. I have resilience in my professional life, resilience in community. I have to face overcoming challenges. It's going to build resilience in the community and enable me to bounce back. Right? There's professional reputation and, you know, when I do my work, but then it's also in the community, like it's, all of these things are still there, there's reputation there. So we want to, how do I show the contributions? The contributions, if I could take both of these hard best, I want to bring the value together which the contributions between professional and communal life, they're interconnected and they mutually reinforce in several ways. Doing hard best.

Here's how. So the first is skill transferability. So their skills developed in one context can often be applied right to another. So communication skilled, honed in in my professional settings can be, can be valuable for fostering collaboration and dialogue within my community. So similarly, right, leadership and project management skills acquired through community involvement can enhance one's effectiveness in my professional role. So there's a skill transferability. It is worth it, guys. It's worth it to develop the hard best at work and in community.

But look at what happens when you bring them together. Look at the contribution between professional and communal life and how they're interconnected and mutually reinforcing each other. Skill transferability. The second is networking and relationship building. So when we can engage then actively in both professional, communal, communal spheres, that's going to expand our network and it's going to strengthen relationships. These connections, like they're made through professional endeavors. And so those professional endeavors, what do they do? They'll, I mean, they can provide valuable support and resources for community initiatives, while relationships built within communities, they can lead to new professional opportunities and collaborations. So what about the third one? How about the personal development and well being? So when we can see this interconnected mutual reinforcing in this area of personal development, well being, success and fulfillment in both professional and communal pursuits contribute to the well being of the person's right, their personal growth.

But those achievements in one domain can also put the confidence resilience, providing the foundation for you to tackle the same types of challenges and goals in this other domain. You get to find that well being and development within the community. How do you find well being in the community? How do you find that success and fulfillment and the community must be done through you prioritizing development. You have to say, development is important. I need it in the community as well. Then there's that social capital and reputation. So you get both of them. You get a social capital through your involvement.

It's going to get your reputation up and your credibility in your professional settings. So conversely, though, maintaining a strong professional reputation can lend to credibility and influence to community initiatives, that's going to, what does that facilitate? You know, support. And you can get support from other stakeholders, other people that, that have a voice and they're collaborating with you. Now, that's a different experience. And then the fifth one is innovation and problem solving. This is what's really cool. This is where this interconnectivity comes in. So it's going to inspire, like different approaches and you can address challenges in a different sphere because of it.

You come together, you have people that are willing to work together, they do hard best well at work. So when they come together in the community, even from different points of view, they can come together, they can find innovative solutions in different contexts with different applications for solving different community issues. And I mean, it's going to give fresh perspective. Now, people are so open to it and because they have it in a professional way as well, and they understand it and they understand the value of it. And then there's this shared values. One of the things I love that's interconnected is shared values and purpose. So when you choose to be one of those hard best people, you do hard things well. You're willing to take the risk, you're willing to grow, you're willing to do it in your personal and professional life and community.

You can engage in both professional and communal activities, and it's going to allow the individual you to align your personal values and sense of purpose across different aspects of your life and theirs. You'll be able to like see these shared values, you'll see them clearer, like compassion and empathy and character, commitment to excellence. Like, these are the things that will drive future behavior and decision making in all the domains. And it's going to give, it's going to foster a sense of just like just fulfillment and coherence, like we're together. So overall, like, they're interconnected, they hold hands. And I think it's very important and we need to understand that when we develop like this, when we do hard best and we have professional in mind, our work, whether it's at a company, as an entrepreneur, whatever it is, or in the communal life. It's going to enhance individuals capacity for impact and fulfillment. And as they draw upon and contribute to various fears for their personal and collective identity, like good things are going to happen, they take those chances, they take those risks and they reap the rewards.

And by leveraging the benefits and experiences gained from, from one domain, they're gonna be able to enrich the other domain. And individuals can cultivate a much, just a holistic approach to success and well being that's going to transcend, right. It'll transcend like the traditional boundaries. It's going to encourage the community to thrive. It's going to inspire it to thrive. It's going to provide room and way and avenue to thrive in the community and in professional world. So I hope this is, I hope this is helpful for you. I want you to take this information and work with it.

I want you to be willing to do hard best. I want you to be willing to do hard things well. I want you to be able to, when it's tough in your relationship, to take a long walk down the short hallway and have a conversation, I want you to understand that you can have a positive stress. It's called Eustress not distress. And it releases the chemicals just, I mean chemicals get released in you and they have an impact and they can make a difference. And you can take a, you can take risks. Yes, you can. And it's the risk takers that are going to be the ones that do the hard best.

And those are the people that are going to see, I believe, greater fulfillment and success. There's so much you can look up if you don't believe it. I don't have time to give you all the details. I can't, there's not enough time. But you can go online, do a simple search in Google. What is the, what are the benefits of doing hard things? How can I benefit for taking the high road? That's another way. How can I benefit for being the one who chooses to do the most difficult thing? See what kind of answers you got. Because I'm all about trying to get better.

I'm all about getting better. And so I encourage you. I want to be a hard best person doing hard best things, and I want to be doing relationship with people who understand hard best as well. Because then things in life, yes, they get easier. And it's not because life is easier, it's because you deal with things differently, because you do hard best. And that's where I want to get to so that my responses can be better. The way I react is better the way I engage or disengage, however it is we can. I can just get better at being human.

So I do thank you so much for giving me your time and attention today. Thank you for listening. Thank you for subscribing. And when you get a chance, make sure that you reach out to people. Make sure you let them know that you can count on me to be a person in your life. I want to be a person who does hard best. I want to be a person who does hard best. Well, I want to do hard best because I choose to.

I want to do hard best first. I don't want to wait for the last minute. I'm going to do it. You can do it. I can do it. And if we all can do this and we bring that together, man, the world is going to be such, such a much better, better place. So again, thank you again for listening. And until next time, we'll talk soon.