The Better Humans newsletter is back!

Issue #269 of the Better Humans Daily. Subscribe here for inspiration and knowledge. [Tony Stubblebine](coachtony?source=email-c7f27b30bfea-1658920528827-newsletter.subscribeToProfile-7038e003d060------------------------93825ac5_f1ec_42d8_a5e1_82f2704dbd22--------de6e5ad096a9)[Tony Stubblebine](coachtony?source=email-c7f27b30bfea-1658920528827-newsletter.subscribeToProfile-7038e003d060------------------------93825ac5_f1ec_42d8_a5e1_82f2704dbd22--------de6e5ad096a9) in [Better Humans](   ∙  4 min read   ∙  [View on Medium]( [Post image] The Better Humans newsletter is back! Issue #269 of the Better Humans Daily. [Subscribe here]( for inspiration and knowledge. ··· Recently I [stepped down as CEO of Coach.me]( and [took over as CEO of Medium](. If you followed me recently because of the Medium announcement, then you might not know what to expect from this newsletter. Here’s the deal: I come from a self-improvement background, my last company was in the coaching space, and I was running this newsletter attached to my Medium publication, Better Humans. I’d paused the newsletter right before changing jobs, but now I’m picking it back up. If you have been subscribed to this newsletter for a long time, then you might have noticed yesterday that I switched tools. I had been using Revue for the bulk of the list, but now I’ve ported everyone over to Medium. (Did you know you can run a free newsletter here?) That’s housekeeping stuff. The really interesting part is that this is a huge job and it’s going to change what I write about. Here is what is changing. - I’m the same person, just in a very different context. So probably the inspiration and insight is going to lean more toward leadership, management, entrepreneurship and productivity. - I’m a bit worried that people on the Medium staff will read something in the newsletter and think I’m passive aggressively sending them a message. So I’m going to occasionally remind readers of Brene Brown’s “[Clear is kind]( For readers who know me IRL: if I have something to tell you then I will tell you directly. - I’m going to write this weekly. Is Wednesday ok? - Readers of this newsletter can still call me Coach Tony. That’ll always be a big part of who I am. ··· Now, something helpful (hopefully). There’s a concept that I’ve been trying to refine enough to teach called the Disease of Done. I’m going to take a try at teaching it to you now. The “disease” is a disease of belief. You think you are done and then become blind to the moment when it should be clear that you aren’t actually done. Most things are rarely done forever. Rather they are done for the moment. When I was teaching habit coaches, I’d use this [Open Gates Model]( to help debug why a client might get stuck. The “belief” gate is one of the most common sticking points. For example, when people form habits they tend to believe they are forming them forever. But more often you have to form and then reform habits as your life changes and the contexts and cues around you change. This is the disease of done in action. You think your habits are forever and so it becomes harder to proactively plan for change. In my case, I’d built up an effective suite of productivity systems. Long time readers know how I feel about single tasking and [interstitial journaling](. Those systems made sense for when I was a CEO of a relatively simple company and had a lot of time for creating. Mostly I was trying to build systems to convert my leisure time into productive creative time. This new job is the opposite. I have no free time and none of my systems worked out of the box. I’m in meetings all the time and when I’m not in meetings there is a huge urgency for me to produce written followups. When I’m slow, we burn money. It’s a bit of a mind f*ck for me to realize how much money it costs if I drag my feet. But I knew this would happen because I’m vigilant to the idea that things aren’t done forever. I did some prep to do ahead of time. But it’s impossible to fully prep for the unknown. So I am calmly rebuilding my systems. I’m two weeks in. Monday was the first night I was back on my workout routine. Today was the first day I had lunch. I’m debating journaling tactics — right now I’m actually finding a legal pad best as a way to keep notes on ideas I want to follow up on in a meeting. The main thing though is that I avoided being frantic or disappointed or feeling out of control because I could see the chaos of this transition coming. That was the main benefit I got from having this counter belief: nothing is ever truly done. That’s me. Does this disease of done idea resonate with you at all? Send me a note because I want to get some more examples to share for next time that I bring it up. [Reply to this story](mailto:tony+newsletter@tonystubblebine.com?subject=Re: The Better Humans newsletter is back!)[View story]( Sent to {EMAIL} by Tony Stubblebine on Medium [Unsubscribe]( from this writer’s Medium emails Medium, 548 Market St, PMB 42061, San Francisco, CA 94104[Careers]( Center]( Policy]( of service](