“Asking ‘Why?’ can lead to understanding. Asking ‘Why not?’ can lead to breakthroughs.”

– Daniel H. Pink (b. 1964), American Author, as quoted in the Monday Morning Memo on February 10th

Lucas, my three-year-old advisor, starts 87.3% of his sentences with “Papa, how ’bout we…” My goddaughter’s firstborn is an energizer bunny who may run his grandpa’s operation by age nine. He is a “Why not first thinker.”

Here’s hoping us stupid adults don’t suck that out of him before then.

Covey had it right, we should “seek first to understand.” And then, when we plot courses from that understanding, “Why not?” is a productive (and hopefully pervasive) element of the way Difference Makers function.

That didn’t work last time… “Why not?” The boss doesn’t like that idea… “Why not?” We’d have to get the go-ahead from the accountant, the lawyer, the curmudgeon, the negative Nelly first… “WHY NOT?” We’d look silly to __________ if we did that and it didn’t work well… “WHY NOT?!!!!” (aka “How will we feel when we do it and it works like a charm?”)

Why are we here? Why do we want to get there? Why did we make that mistake? Why did we nail that last decision perfectly? Those are great uses of the first half of the breakthrough question – “Why?”

When we raise it to “Why not?” we remove (or reduce) confirmation bias, historical bias, presumed bias, and all sorts of other unproven biases.

“You like a person because of… But you love a person in spite of…”

– From the movie, “Set It Up” The Wizard of Ads Monday Morning Memo February 10, 2025

Having never seen the movie, but never missed a Monday Morning Memo, I decided to take the quote at face value.

Because I can, and we should.

“The topic of love in a business blog a few times in a couple weeks?” you may be wondering.

There’s some cause and effect behind it, sure, yet it’s also a blog about Difference Makers. Difference Makers choose to love. People. Places. Things. Circumstances. In spite of how hard it can be.

“Confidence and humility are not opposites. In fact, you can’t have true humility until you first have confidence. Confidence without humility is arrogance. Humility without confidence is an inferiority complex. “

– Roy H. Williams, The Wizard of Ads and now the third-most frequently quoted dude in The Diff’s history

Hate is not the opposite of love, either. Fear is.

Opposites are an interesting way to look at life. Opposites seem to lead with “but.”

Today, this week, let’s try to use our “and/or” filter more than our “but/so” filter.

I bet it makes a difference, and not just for us.

Confident AND humble. Kind AND firm. Smart AND curious.

I’d love to hear how it works for you.

“Can you imagine what this man could have been had somebody loved him?”

• Henry Kissinger (1923 – 2023 ), speaking of his boss, President Richard M. Nixon

“Love, exciting, and new,” to quote the theme from The Love Boat — and the topic of two Diffs in less than a week. Weird.

So, in a business blog, Heston?

Yep. For those of you too young to remember Kissinger, Nixon and “their time,” it’s worth some time in the library, on Amazon getting a book or two, or just on The Goog, learnin’.

To be kind, Nixon was paranoid. He was so paranoid he might have been a pair of noid. (I know, I know…) He was wicked smart and saw the big picture, but ultimately failed and almost went to prison because – according to Kissinger- he operated as a man who never knew love. Never knowing it, he also rarely (if ever) gave it.

Love brings out the best in people. Over time, I’ve had to fire team members, even though I loved them – in a business-appropriate sense. Because love brings out the best in people, and our job, as leaders, is to bring out the best in people.

Trust is built on love. Empathy is built on love. If our teams believe that we trust them and understand them and their roles (and how they function in those roles), we can have the tough conversation. We can hold them to a higher standard. We can pour into them and almost have parental pride in their growth. If they feel loved, we can ask more of them, expect more of them, and give them honest feedback when they fail to live up to those expectations.

Even if you don’t remember Kissinger and Nixon, hold this thought in the context of Pat in accounting, Chris in sales, and every other team member. Love them first, and when they move on, the best of them moves on, just as it will have come out under your watch.

“If we all are in agreement on the decision – then I propose we postpone further discussion on this matter until our next meeting to give ourselves time to develop disagreement and perhaps gain some understanding of what the decision is all about.”

• Alfred P. Sloan (1875 – 1966), longtime CEO of General Motors and one of America’s brightest foundational business mind

Nine guys met this morning at Ed’s house on the topic of unity. Then, I found this Sloan quote that I wish I could have remembered while discussing unity.

Unity ain’t about being exactly alike and building concrete walls around groupthink.

Unity is about the big thing, and all the small things that lead us to the big thing are up for debate. And the debate is important. We need to develop disagreement.

The then-six-year-old daughter of a colleague once said. “Daddy, great minds don’t think alike. I think great minds think different, and that’s what makes them great.” She evidently could have run GM in its hayday!

Let’s promote disparate thought. Let’s encourage productive discourse. Let’s switch roles and argue the other side’s point to ratify or blow up our own.

Unity = win the game. Unity pertains to strategy. Disparity is important in assuring we get the most from our unity.

Final note: The things we’re unified on are sacred. We. Are. Unified. How we get to them, that’s where our different experiences, ideas, perspectives and approaches pay off.

“You know, we all want the love.”

• Kultida Woods (19xx – 2025), mother of Tiger Woods, in an interview several years ago

“Tida” Woods was Tiger Woods’ mother, and she passed away a few days ago at the age of 80. Whether you’re a Tiger fan or not (I wasn’t and then became one), and no matter how much you’ve read about Tiger’s dad and his influence on the second-greatest golfer of my lifetime, Tida Woods, to use Tiger’s description was “a force of nature.”

Pray for Tiger and his kids.

I write about Dad a lot and Mom a lot less. Like Tiger, though, who I am today was shaped at least as much by Pat Heston as it was Dick. Her loyalty, fierce protection of her kids and family, and her love were without question.

From a business-side view, we all want “the love,” too. The love that comes with respect. The love that comes with trust. The love that comes with conviction and the love that comes with accountability.

Love at work isn’t like love at home unless you’re in a family business, I guess. They’re both Biblical, though, and they’re both worth choosing. And if it doesn’t feel like an easy choice, they’re both worth pursuing until it is.

We all want the love—all of us. As leaders, parents, partners, providers, and Clients, let’s set the example.

Peace to you, Tiger, Charlie, and Sam. Peace to all of us who have lost loved ones and to all of us who will someday.

Pick up the phone. Make the call. Remind someone how important they are and that they are loved. At home. At work. Wherever.

“I’m not sure how many problems I have because math is one of them.”

• Yesterday’s entry on my sister’s funny daily calendar

I mean, it’s funny, right? Like, spit out my coffee funny when she texted me the picture yesterday.

Now, substitute the word “opportunities” for the word “problems.”

It’s not nearly as danged funny. But it’s equally valid.

I drove two hours yesterday to meet with a guy I knew disagreed with us and to sit in a room I could have Zoomed into on The Interthings. In between, I met the owner of a microbrewery, who gave me four or five insights that will energize and help me help my client today.

According to the funny-calendar-math, the “problem” was the four hours in the car. The flip side, the less funny (yet exciting) side, is the multiple opportunities enduring the problem uncovered.

Now, someone give me a hand while I step down off my soapbox.

^{(See, that’s funny, too, from where I sit. And it’s my blog. So there!)}

“Pick your poison!”

• A phrase dating back 150 years, apparently referring to choosing a cocktail

Since 1906, we haven’t been able to pick our poison in the case of Red Dye #3.

Now, before you think I’ve (further) lost my mind, bear with me. There’s a point here, hopefully Diff Worthy.

Red Dye #3 has been outlawed by the Food & Drug Administration (FDA). It’s made from petroleum products and has been in most of what I ate from 1962 until, well, recently, seein’s how I’m trying to eat more better lately.

Look up “erythrosine.” (Never mind, I just did it for you…) That’s Red Dye #3’s birth name.

The point here is that we should consider the effects of what we sell beyond where we make the sale.

And we ought to disclose them. And not on page 61 of a 90-page disclosure document.

“This derivative investment has way more risk than your certificate of deposit, but you ain’t gonna retire on that CD, unless you start on a Red Dye #3-only diet.”

“This software hasn’t been tested widely yet, but if you give it a go as a “Beta Client,” wow, will we cut you a deal! Oh, the privacy and cybersecurity concerns? We’ll let the attorneys figure that out!”

“This electric car battery consumes about a bajillion units of eleventy-three different chemicals, resources and “stuff” which put out enough CFCs to single-handedly make the hole in the ozone ginormous.”

The potentially harmful things in what we sell shouldn’t be disclosed on page 61 of a 90-page disclosure document. If we’re building the kind of relationships we want with Clients and customers, we ought to trust ourselves and them enough to pull a Paul Harvey out of our hat and give them the rest of the story. Up front. Before the sale.

^{Editor’s Note: If the internet was really good, you could look up my late red-haired buddy Michael “Jick” “Red” Dye from the 1980s, but for now, we’ll focus on the petroleum-based stuff in all sorts o’ food. How’s THAT for a digression?}

“Both your friend and your enemy think you will never die.”

– An Old Irish Proverb

“This team will never lose again.”

• Shoresy, the title character in the Hulu offbeat comedy of the same name

I can’t pull a clip from Shoresy, no matter how much I want to seein’s how The Diff is still a family-oriented-ish business blog. But, if you don’t mind very spicy content and rough language and funny, well-developed characters, the show is irreverent but hilarious. Even if you just put “shoresy never lose again” in The Goog, you’ll get my point.

“You have a point, Heston?” you may be asking?

I shoresy do. (See what I did there? Pretty slick, huh?)

Never, always, everyone, and nobody are words we should never use and always avoid, even if everyone or nobody uses them.

Check out the epitome of hyperbole clip from Brian Regan.

Never should be replaced with sometimes. Always with often. Everyone = many people. Nobody = few people.

Absolutes are rarely absolute. And when we speak in absolutes, we drive wedges instead of bringing people together. We diminish our experience and intelligence. We make our enemies hope we never die and our friends more comfortable when we finally do.

Leave room for collaboration, and it will break out and spread. And that’s often a good thing, sometimes a powerful thing. For many people. And rarely for only a few people.

“No matter where you go, there you are.”

• Dick Heston (1933 – 2002), my dad, a farmer and factory worker and wisest guy I’ll ever know

It’s ok for the good parts of us to travel and move with us. It’s the lousy baggage we must leave on the bus stop’s curb. Because, as Dad was saying, in his outstanding farmer and factory worker way, whatever baggage, experience (good or bad), and/or habits we carry with us will still be with us even when we change locations unless we consciously put them down, or at least store them away.

Dad’s point was it’s better to go to something than from something.

Should I change jobs? Should I move to a different company? Am I afraid of a major change? Should I resist a significant change? Am I having the same challenge I’ve had before with a Client?

If these are the questions in our mind, we need to be aware of whether it’s something we brought with us or something new, and if it’s new, it’s best to see it as an exciting new challenge than “the same damned thing that ticked me off back at ________.”

Change — especially purpose-driven change — will keep us growing, getting better, and making a difference.